Meaning of shoe-leather | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Leather that is used to make shoes.
   countable, uncountable
2. Leather from which shoes are made that is worn out through walking.
   uncountable
3. The sweat of one's brow; effort; investigatory effort.
   broadly, countable, idiomatic, uncountable
4. Tough meat, especially cheap meat.
   countable, derogatory, figuratively, slang, uncountable

Examples

“Outside of patent leathers and specialties, I know of no other types of shoe leathers which are commanding replacement costs today.”

“Naturally, this aristocrat of shoe leathers costs more than ordinary leather – and, for the past two years, it has been all but unobtainable in this country.”

“Notable in feminine footgear of the first two decades was the increasing number of different shoe leathers consisting of box calf, white calf, colored kids, buck and antelope.”

“Shoe Leathers. Leather used in making shoes is of two kinds – bottom, or sole, leather and upper leather.”

“British authors have long suspected and documented that vegetable-tanned leather was responsible for many of their unexplained shoe leather-positive patients.”

“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.”

“Save on shoe leather [letter title] […] Pounding the sidewalks can seriously wear you out.”

“Many sleuths, both professional and amateur, have devoted years to unravelling the circumstances of the heist, but one man who has worn out more shoe leather than most in pursuit of this mystery is Stephen Kurkjian, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter now retired after 40 years at The Boston Globe.”

“They expended a lot of shoe-leather in hunting down every lead.”

“Another way in which the laity expressed their yearning to break through the barrier separating them from the divine was to journey in pilgrimage to sacred places or shrines, so that they might offer their prayers in an especially powerful and effective setting. This was a devotion in which a layperson’s shoeleather was as good as that of any priest.”

“America desperately needed a Jimmy Carter in 1976 […] And so for him to come out of almost from nowhere to earn the nomination by sheer shoe leather in Iowa and New Hampshire, and to be the person outside of the establishment and to say, I’m not from Washington, I will never lie to you, I’m a born again Christian – what I say is that, he really did bring a close to the Watergate period.”

“The school certainly wasn't breaking the bank by feeding us — when it wasn't gruel it was shoe-leather.”

CEFR level