You might have called them clogs, but the heavy wooden shoe that features in the traditional dress of many European countries is officially called a sabot. It comes from the French word “savate,” meaning “old shoe,” and it’s related to the words for “shoe” in other Romance languages — in Italian, “ciabatta” means “old shoe,” and in Spanish, “zapato” means “shoe.”  Interestingly, “sabotage” comes from the word “sabot.” French workers during the Industrial Revolution would throw their wooden sabots into machinery to disrupt work and protest working conditions. Now, any sort of deliberate interference intended to cause harm can be called sabotage.