Etymology

poulaine

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Today it means: A long, pointed toe of a shoe, a style fashionable in the 14th and 15th centuries. Full definition →

Anglo-Norman poleine ← Middle French poulaine ← Old French poulain
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The story

  1. Old French · derived frompoulain“Polish”
  2. Middle French · borrowed frompoulaine“(shoe with a) pointed toe”
  3. Anglo-Norman · borrowed frompoleine“(shoe with a) pointed toe”
  4. English todaypoulaine

From Anglo-Norman poleine (“(shoe with a) pointed toe”) and Middle French poulaine (“(shoe with a) pointed toe”), apparently from Old French poulain (“Polish”) (compare crackow), the style being supposed to be Polish. Possibly related to poleyn (“knee armor”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.