Forms: 5 bote(n, -yn, (bute), 7 boote, 6– boot. [f. BOOT sb.3]
1. trans. To put boots on (another or oneself).
1468. Medulla Gram., in Cath. Angl., 49, note. Ocreo, to botyn.
1483. Cath. Angl., 49. To Bute [Buyyt], ocreare.
1600. Heywood, 1 Edw. IV., II. Wks. 1874, I. 33. Let me entreate you would go boote yourselues.
1693. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen., 272. To Boot, ocreas induere. Ballad ‘Young Redin’ x. in Allingham Ballad Bk. (1865), 285. They’ve booted him and spurred him.
b. intr. (for refl.) To put on one’s boots.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., V. lii. 140. Get on thy Boots … Boote, boote, Master Shallow.
1813. Sir R. Wilson, Priv. Diary, II. 272. Many persons booting … for a journey to Paris.
1855. Kingsley, Westw. Ho! (1861), 95. Help me to boot and gird.
2. trans. To torture with the BOOT (sb.3 3).
1580–1. Randolph, in Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), IV. 324. He hath been sore booted.
1818. Scott, Lett., in Lockhart (1839), V. 282. Tradition says … Granger and his wife were booted.
3. Mil. slang: To beat, formerly with a long jack-boot, now with a leather surcingle or waist-belt: an irregular conventional punishment inflicted by soldiers on a comrade guilty of dishonesty or shirking duty.
1802. C. James, Mil. Dict. (1816), 84/2. Scabbarding a soldier, as in the infantry of the line, or booting him, as in the cavalry.
