Shoes

[Miss Bex]

Why are shoes called shoes and not something like feet protectors?

[firefly]

Presumably the reason that they aren't called 'foot-protectors' is that are cosmetic things, rather than to stop harm to the feet.

[sft42]

For the same reason eggs aren't called "those things that fall out of those flappy, feathery things, bottoms"...everything in common useage gets a name (unless you german when you just keep adding bits on...any langauge that calls a nipple a breast wart is deeply suspicious)....if we thought like that then speakers would be boxes that sound comes out of......it would make for very, very, very long conversations.

[Quizmonster]

Some scholars trace the word back to the Gothic 'skewjan', meaning to take a walk...others assume it comes from a pre-Teutonic word-form 'skeu', meaning to cover. In modern English, these would suggest shoes are 'walkers' - in the sense of 'things to walk in' - or 'foot-covers'.

The latter of these is not really that far from your idea about 'feet protectors', Miss B!