Also 7 soel, Sc. soill; 7–8 soal, Sc. soll. [f. SOLE sb.1, perh. through the vbl. sb., which is found earlier. Cf. MDu. solen (Du. zolen; Fris. soalje), LG. solen, salen, MHG. solen (G. sohlen, besohlen); also Sp. and Pg. solar.]
1. trans. To provide or furnish (a boot, shoe, stocking, etc.) with a sole.
(a) 1570. Levins, Manip., 160. To sole, solum adhibere.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Carreler, to sole shoes.
1598. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 112. Soleinge one pare of shoes, vd.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 175. The Scythians make them shooes, and soal them with the backs of Fox and Mise skins.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), I. 217.
| A peripatetic Cobler scorn’d to soal | |
| A pair of Shoes of any other School. |
1726. Swift, Gulliver, IV. x. 146. I soaled my Shoes with Wood.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxix. The deil flay the hide o’ it to sole his brogues wi’!
1857. Miller, Elem. Chem., Org., vii. § 2. 509. [Gutta percha] is employed as a substitute for leather in soling boots and shoes.
1906. C. A. Sherring, Western Tibet, iv. 65. Their shoes … are soled with rope very ingeniously and finely plaited.
absol. 1824. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1859), II. 45/1. He is at liberty to make a shoe anywhere;… he may sole on the Mississippi,—heel on the Missouri.
(b) 1578. in Archæologia, XXV. 566. Given to a tailor for solinge a payre of stockinges.
1602. Segar, Honor, Milit. & Civ., II. xi. 71. Two others shall put on his blacke netherstockes soled with leather.
1664. in Maitland Club Miscell. (1840), II. 517. For solling his Lordships stockengis.
b. To cover with or as with a sole.
1681. Grew, Musæum, I. vii. ii. 167. The fore-feet are soled each with four little Tufts of Down or short Hair. Ibid., 170. His Feet soled with a treble Tuft of a close short tawny Down.
c. To fit the head of a golf-club with a sole.
1905. Golf & How to Play It, 11.
2. transf. To form the base or bottom of.
a. 1643. W. Cartwright, Ordinary, IV. i. (1651), 58. My Debt-books shall soal Pyes at young Andrew’s Wedding.
1714. Lady G. Baillie, Household Bk. (S.H.S.), 247. For stones to soll the big oven.
3. Golf. To place the sole of a club on the ground in preparing for a stroke. Also refl. and absol.
1909. Vaile, Mod. Golf, 27. Nearly all professionals, when addressing their ball for the put, sole the putter in front of the ball. Ibid., 29. The professional soles in front of his ball because [etc.]. Ibid. The driver is made so that it should sole itself when allowed to rest naturally on the ground.
