the.com/shoe tongue
The flap that takes all the lace pressure so your foot doesn't have to.
means The padded flap of material under a shoe's laces that cushions the top of your foot.
from Simply a shape metaphor — the flap sits in the 'mouth' of the shoe opening and resembles an animal's tongue lolling out. English has long used body-part metaphors for object parts (the eye of a needle, the arm of a chair), and tongue has done this kind of duty since Old English, extending to anything long, flat, and protruding — a tongue of flame, a tongue of land, a shoe's tongue among them.
- function
- Distributes lacing pressure across the top of your foot
- material
- Often padded foam, sometimes gusseted to block debris
- etymology
- Named for shape, not for any actual tasting ability
- flaw
- Always slides sideways at the worst possible moment