patent leather

Black leather finished to a hard glossy surface and used especially for shoes and clothing accessories.

[So called because it is made by a once-patented process.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

patent leather

(Tanning) leather or imitation leather processed with lacquer to give a hard glossy surface

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

pat′ent leath′er

(ˈpæt nt, ˈpæt n; esp. Brit. ˈpeɪt nt)
n.

a hard, glossy, smooth leather used esp. for shoes and accessories.

[1820–30]

patent leather

- Got its name from the U.S. Patent Office, as the leather's finish was once protected by patent.

patent leather

n → vernice f (pellame)

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

When the first part of the performance was over, the Owner and Manager of the circus, in a black coat, white knee breeches, and patent leather boots, presented himself to the public and in a loud, pompous voice made the following announcement:

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There was a great gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and bridle.

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Chandler's patent leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest.

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She took off the thick boots in which she had walked thus far, put on her pretty thin ones of patent leather, and, stuffing the former into the hedge by the gatepost where she might readily find them again, descended the hill; the freshness of colour she had derived from the keen air thinning away in spite of her as she drew near the parsonage.

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Here and there a well-known actor passed, elaborately unconscious of the attention he excited: sometimes he wore patent leather boots, a coat with an astrakhan collar, and carried a silver-knobbed stick; and sometimes, looking as though he had come from a day's shooting, he strolled in knickerbockers, and ulster of Harris tweed, and a tweed hat on the back of his head.

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Finally, he sniffed the dead man's lips, and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.

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"Oh, very simply; black trousers, patent leather boots, white waistcoat, either a black or blue coat, and a long cravat.

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He's got a great black beard, and wears patent leather boots in all weathers!

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Among those ancestral people there is a young man, dressed in the very fashion of to-day: he wears a dark frock-coat, almost destitute of skirts, gray pantaloons, gaiter boots of patent leather, and has a finely wrought gold chain across his breast, and a little silver-headed whalebone stick in his hand.

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I only had three pairs in the world--the new brown, the old black, and the patent leathers, which I am wearing.

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Give me your patent leathers, and I'll fill them with stones and sink them in the pond.

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I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing.

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