pair of shoes

plural pairs of shoes

1. datedidiomaticA case or situation that is different from another.

   Eckhardt was a very different pair of shoes from Gaál.

   1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 121

   2 more examples

   “Shall colonists have their horses (and blood ’uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no. We’ll show ’em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won’t us?”

   1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter I, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 11

   “He’s all there, if that’ll ease their mind. But where he is—that’s another pair of shoes.”

   1876, Robert Edward Francillon, “A Dog and His Shadow, Book II, Chapter XIX”, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, volume 16, page 624

   Synonyms: kettle of fish, ball game

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pair, shoes.