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shoelace

UK/ˈʃuːˌleɪs/US/ˈʃuːˌleɪs/
nounA2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,363 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: shoelaces

A shoelace is the string that ties a shoe shut. Tie a shoelace, an undone shoelace, break a shoelace.

The common bow knot is really a slip knot and comes undone because most people tie it wrong, crossing the same way twice — the stronger version sits square instead of skewed. Children learn to manage a shoelace at about five or six.

Jonas Bergsten · Public domain

Definitions of shoelace

  1. 1nounshoelaceThe string that ties a shoe shut.A2+

    “He bent down to tie his shoelace just before the race started.”

shoelace is a cord.

Where it comes from

Shoe plus lace, from Old French las, a cord, from Latin laqueus, a noose.

shoe + lace

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Clothes & Fashion

Practise this word

shoelace in the wild

  • Each shoelace typically passes through a series of holes, eyelets, loops or hooks on either side of the shoe.

    Shoelaces

  • The fiddle can be bowed with a bow made from another cornstalk, made from a shoelace or other piece of string, or with a standard violin bow.

    Cornstalk fiddle

  • The shoelace knot, or bow knot, is commonly used for tying shoelaces and bow ties.

    Shoelace knot

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.