Words at Play : Words For Things You Didn't Know Have Names, Vol. 2
Definition:
the part of a shoe or boot that covers the front of the foot
Example Sentence:
I had my shoe repaired because the vamp was coming unstitched from the toe.
About the Word:
It comes from the Old French avanpié (from avant-, meaning "fore," + pié, meaning "foot").
An old sense of vamp meant "to piece a new vamp onto a shoe"; that "patch together" sense led to the more recent (but uncommon) verb vamp: "to invent or fabricate something," or "to improvise or extemporize."
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