Why Are Shoes Called Sneakers?

Everyone has probably owned a pair of these shoes to wear for day-to-day activities or a sporting event. I’m talking about sneakers, the footwear of choice for those on the go in one form or another. But where did the term sneakers come from, and was it really about sneaking?

The origin of the footwear we know as sneakers had its beginnings in an 1862 book titled, Female Life in Prison, By a Prison Matron. In the first volume of the two-volume set of books written by Frederick Robinson about prison life for females in England in the 19th century, Robinson uses the word “sneaks” to refer to the shoes the guards (matrons) use in the prison. Here’s the quote from the original text.

The night-officer is generally accustomed to wear a species of India-rubber shoes or goloshes. These are termed “sneaks” by the women. (Female Life in Prison, 1862)

The use of the word “sneak” didn’t start here, however. The word itself has been around since the 16th century to mean essentially the same thing as it does today, such as to move stealthy or act in a furtive manner, but this 1862 reference was the first to refer to a type of shoe.

Another book out of England twelve years later also referenced the “sneak” as a shoe. James Greenwood wrote the book, In Strange Company, in 1874, and referred to a sneak as a shoe with a canvas top…