shoeing horn, shoehorn

I. Lit .: A device to a ist in putting on a shoe. It is frequently made of polished horn, but also of sheet metal. *II. Figuratively : 1. Anything by which a transaction is facilitated; anything used as a medium; hence, applied to a dangler on young ladies, encouraged merely to draw on other admirers. "Most of our fine young ladies retain in their service supernumerary and insignificant fellows, which they use like whifflers, and commonly call shoeing-horns."-Add is on: Spectator, No. 536. 2. Something to draw on another gla or pot; an incitement to drinking.