the.com/shoehorn

means To force something into a space or situation that's clearly too small or unsuitable for it, often awkwardly.

from A plain compound of "shoe" plus "horn" — and yes, the original was literally made of horn, the hard keratin from cattle or oxen, smoothed and curved to slip a heel past a stiff shoe back. Such tools have helped feet into shoes for centuries; the figurative sense of cramming one thing into another came later, an easy leap from the image of squeezing a foot where it doesn't quite want to go.