spatterdashes

English

Noun

spatterdashes pl (normally plural, singular spatterdash)

1. Coverings for the legs, to protect them from water and mud; long gaiters.
   • 1878, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, page 165:

     [W]’i my firelock, and my bagnet, and my spatterdashes […] I was a pretty sight in my soldiering days.

   • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 39, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 395:

     Over the winter-solid Roads, goes a great seething,— of mounted younger Gentlemen riding together by the dozens upon rented horses, Express Messengers in love with pure Velocity, Disgruntl'd Suitors with Pistols stuff'd in their Spatterdashes, seal'd Waggons not even a western Black-Boy would think of detaining.

Alternative forms

• spatterdashers

Derived terms

• spatterdashed