a leather cover or defense for the leg, used on horseback, both to keep the body more firm, and defend the part from the injuries of the weather. Boots seem to have taken their name from the resemblance they bear to a sort of jacks or leather bottles formerly in use, and called botte, in the old French boute. Borel derives the name from the old French word bot, a flump, by reason the boot gives the leg this appearance. The Chinese have a kind of boots made of silk or fine stuff lined with cotton, a full inch thick, which they always wear at home. This people are always booted; and when a visit is made them, if they happen to be without their boots, their guest must wait till they put them on. They never stir out of doors without their boots on; and their scrupulousness in this respect is the more remarkable as they are always carried in their chairs.

The boot was much used by the ancients, by the foot as well as by the horsemen. It was called by the ancient Romans *scutum*; in middle-age writers, *grecia*, *gamberia*, *bainbergia*, *bembarga*, or *bembarga*. The boot is said to have been the invention of the Carians. It was at first made of leather, afterwards of brafs or iron, and was proof both against cuts and thrusts. It was from this that Homer calls the Greeks *brass-booted*. The boot only covered half the leg; some say the right leg, which was more advanced than the left, it being advanced forwards in an attack with the sword; but in reality it appears to have been used on either leg, and sometimes on both. Those who fought with darts or other missile weapons, advanced the left leg foremost, so that this only was booted.

**Boot-Tree**, or **Boot-lea**, an instrument used by shoemakers to widen the leg of a boot. It is a wooden cylinder slit into two parts, between which, when it is put into the boot, they drive by main force a wedge or quoins.