Shoe-leather
adj, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Leather that is used to make shoes. countable, uncountable
"Outside of patent leathers and specialties, I know of no other types of shoe leathers which are commanding replacement costs today."
- 2 Leather from which shoes are made that is worn out through walking. uncountable
"In old times, if a Coniston peasant had any business at Ulverstone, he walked to Ulverstone; spent nothing but shoe-leather on the road, drank at the streams, and if he spent a couple of batz when he got to Ulverstone, "it was the end of the world." But now, he would never think of doing such a thing! He first walks three miles in a contrary direction, to a railroad station, and then travels by railroad twenty-four miles to Ulverstone, paying two shillings fare."
- 3 The sweat of one's brow; effort; investigatory effort. broadly, countable, idiomatic, uncountable
"They expended a lot of shoe-leather in hunting down every lead."
- 4 Tough meat, especially cheap meat. countable, derogatory, figuratively, slang, uncountable
"The school certainly wasn't breaking the bank by feeding us — when it wasn't gruel it was shoe-leather."
- 1 Basic, old-fashioned or traditional; specifically (journalism) shoe-leather journalism or shoe-leather reporting: journalism involving walking from place to place observing things and speaking to people, rather than sitting indoors at a desk. idiomatic, not-comparable
"When we set out to produce the site full time, everything we did went on the site, but the reporting for the site hasn't changed. I don't think it ever will. It's basic shoe leather reporting, hunting down sources and documents and confirming authenticity."
Example
More examples"Outside of patent leathers and specialties, I know of no other types of shoe leathers which are commanding replacement costs today."
Etymology
From shoe + leather.
Related phrases
More for "shoe-leather"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.