Dictionary Home »
Webster's New World College Dictionary » white-shoe
white-shoe
white-shoe definition
☆ white-shoe (-s̸ho̵̅o̅′)
adjective
designating or characteristic of a business company, esp. a law firm or brokerage, in which the partners belong almost exclusively to the white, Protestant, upper-class elite and are thought of as being conservative
Etymology: from the white shoes fashionable at Ivy-League colleges in the 1950s
Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Browse dictionary definitions near white-shoe
Share on Facebook
Etymology and Definition of White-Shoe
According to William Safire, the phrase derives from "white bucks", a type of laced suede or buckskin shoe with a red sole, long popular among upper-class New Englanders, especially at Ivy League colleges.[1] Originally, it reflected a stereotype of old-line firms populated by WASPs, but the phrase has since become innocuous. In the case of investment banks (Goldman, Lazard, Lehman), the term referred to not only WASPs but also aristocratic Jews. However, it is still defined by Princeton University's Wordnet as "denoting a company or law firm owned and run by members of the WASP elite who are generally conservative," which shows that the original connotation has not changed entirely
Posted by anonymous 70 days ago.