Lost Word Of The Day (27)

Along with tying laces cleaning shoes with polish seems to be a lost art these days with shoes made of synthetic materials ruling the roost. However, when shoes were cleaned with polish, the owner of the pair, or probably the bootblack or a servant, would, like as not, wield a pannuscorium, a soft leather cloth. The derivation is quite straightforward, the amalgamation of two Latin nouns, pannus meaning cloth and corium, leather.

Pannuscorium, albeit separated into two words, was also a brand name for leather cloth boots and shoes for Ladies and gentlemen, the patent for which was held by Hall and Co of Wellington Street, off London’s Strand, boot and shoe makers to George IV.

An advertisement in The Freemasons’ Quarterly Advertiser of December 31, 1842 declared that “These articles have borne the test and received the approbation of all who have worn them. Such as are troubled with corns, bunions, gout, chilblains, or tenderness of feet from any other cause, will find the softest and most comfortable ever invented; they never draw the feet or get hard”. This wonder cloth was available to manufacturers, sold by the yard.

They were still being advertised in the mid-1890s. I wonder what happened to them.