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- The word sneak comes from the old English word snican that meant “to reach for”.
- The word evolved over time, and by the 1500s, it came to mean ‘to move in a way so you can’t be seen or noticed’.
- In the 1800s, rubber soles were introduced in the shoes for the first time.
- The first proper rubber-soled shoes were developed in England, and they were called plimsolls (named after the inventor Samuel Plimsoll).
- And when compared to traditional leather shoes, which made a lot of noise, these rubber-soled shoes were considerably quiet.
- So, in a sense, it was much easier to sneak wearing them than wearing the traditional leather shoes.
- Then, in 1862, in a book titled Female Life in Prison, author Fredrick Robinson referred to the shoes worn by the guards as ‘sneaks’.
- These shoes were rubber-soled.
- Here’s the text from the book: The night-officer is generally accustomed to wear [sic] a species of India-rubber shoes or goloshes [sic] on her feet. These are termed ‘sneaks’ by the women [of Brixton Prison].
- In 1874, another book, In Strange Company, referred to a sneak as a shoe with a canvas top and India-rubber sole.
- A few more references occurred in the late 1880s, and then in 1889, a department store Jordan Marsh advertised its rubber-soled shoes as “sneakers.”
- By 1900, it became common in the US to refer to rubber-soled shoes as sneakers.
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