jackboot

American  

[jak-boot] / ˈdʒækˌbut /

noun

1. a sturdy leather boot reaching up over the knee, worn especially by soldiers.

2. Also called jackboot tactics.  brutally bullying, militaristic, or authoritarian measures.

3. a person who uses such measures.

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jackboot British  

/ ˈdʒækˌbuːt /

noun

1. an all-leather military boot, extending up to or above the knee

2. 1. arbitrary, cruel, and authoritarian rule or behaviour

   2. ( as modifier )

      jackboot tactics

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Other Word Forms

• jackbooted adjective

Etymology

Origin of jackboot

First recorded in 1680–90; jack ¹ + boot ¹

Example Sentences

I understood how growing up under the jackboot of Jim Crow might lead him to the philosophy of Black self-sufficiency articulated by Malcolm X, which Thomas espoused in his youth.

From Washington Post • Apr. 17, 2023

Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United were about to feel the force of Fifa's jackboot but the governing body thought about the consequences and decided to don slippers instead.

From BBC • Sep. 12, 2021

But then the other shoe — or jackboot — dropped, and any celebration of Tokarczuk’s work was hijacked by a fresh controversy: The Swedish Academy awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in literature to Peter Handke.

From Washington Post • Oct. 10, 2019

This links it up with a movie about a similar collapse when the jackboot was on the other foot, the catastrophic French defeat of 1940.

From The Guardian • Feb. 18, 2013

Phyllis, standing on tiptoe and clinging precariously to his saddle-cloth, was dropping a roll of paper neatly into the jackboot of Hercules.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 14, 1916 by Various