a leather cover or defence 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 seem to have taken their name from the resemblance they bear to a sort of jacks or leathern bottles formerly in use, and called botte, in the old French boots. Borel derives the name from the old French word bot, a lump, 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 orea; in middle-age writers, greva, gambieria, bainbergia, benbarga, or benbarga. The boot is said to have been the invention of the Carians. It was at first made of leather, afterwards of brass or iron, and was proof both against cuts and thrusts. It was from this that Homer calls the Greeks brazen-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.

Fishing-Boots, are a thick strong sort used in dragging ponds, and the like. Hunting-boots, a thinner kind used by sportsmen. Jack-boots, a kind of very strong boots used by the troopers.

Boots, is likewise a kind of torture for criminals; to extort a confession, by means of a boot, stocking, or buckskin of parchment; which being put on the leg moist, and brought near the fire, shrinking squeezes the leg violently, and occasions intolerable pain.

There is also another kind of boot; consisting of four thick strong boards bound round with cords: two of these are put between the criminal's legs, and the two others placed one on the outside of one leg and the other on the other; then squeezing the legs against the boards by the cords, the criminal's bones are severely pinched, or even broken, &c.

The boot is now disused in England and Scotland; but it subsists still in some other countries.

Boot-Tree, or Boot-lash, 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.