Green’s Dictionary of Slang

daisy roots n.

boots.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 142: DAISY RECROOTS (so spelt by my informant of Seven Dials, he means, doubtless, recruits), a pair of boots.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 501: I screwed my nut in the washhouse and I piped three or four pair of daisy roots [...] While waiting for my pal I had my daisies cleaned.
1879		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Meg’s Diversion’ Sporting Times 4 Sept.n.p.: He’d only one daisy root.
1884		Sporting Times 29 Nov. 1/1: Touch me On The Nob. He has olivered. He took his daisy roots off his plates of meat and threw them in my chivy.
1887		‘Dagonet’ ‘A Plank Bed Ballad’ Referee 12 Feb. n.p.: I smug any snowy I see on the hedge, / And I ain’t above daisies and clobber.
1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 152: Failing the more desirable wedge, one might claim a pair or two of daisies put out for cleaning.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 2 June 2/6: She was trying on a pair of boots [...] and the assistant commenced shaking some powdered chalk into the chosen ‘daisy roots’ to make them slip on easy.
1898		Binstead & Wells A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 244: ’As yer old Dutch ben a-gettin’ of ’er daisies out again?
1900		Sydney Truth 7 Jan. in Baker (1945) 269: I ’ad a brown I’m afloat, a green Jacky Lancashire in me lef-’and sky, and tan daisy roots.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘What Really Happened’ Sporting Times 5 Sept. 1/4: She had twitted me with borrowing, and there I was in fault, / An old pair of boots of hers—and they were old. / All I did was to politely give her back her ‘daisy roots’.
1912		Sport (Adelaide) 24 Aug. 14/1: They Say [...] That Din, with his new ‘Sac and Bonnet,’ with a nobby up the back, and new ‘daisy roots,’ is cutting flash.
1917		W. Muir Observations of Orderly 225: A man’s arm is his ‘false alarm’; [...] his boot, ‘daisy root’.
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 16: I talked to him of his [...] ‘daisies’ (‘daisy roots’ rhymes with ‘boots’).
1932		Truth (Sydney) 17 July 3/1: He made a hasty search round for a pair of daisy roots that would go on his tootsies.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 4: Is it my daisies that draw your gaze? Or my sun-green cadie?
1937		L. Lane Me and My Girl I iii: charles: Daisy roots? bill: My boots!
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 58: I’ll give it [i.e. a prize] to the best-shone pair o’ daisy roots end o’ next week.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. [as roots].
1944		Maurer & Baker ‘“Aus.” Rhyming Argot’ in AS XIX:3 [as roots].
1953		J. Franklyn Cockney 293: You’re acomin’ out with me a Saturday to buy you a new pair o’ daisy roots.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 268: My daisies I bullock’d for two pig’s ears / To warm my Auntie Nelly.
1960		J. Franklyn Dict. of Rhy. Sl. 55/2: Daisy recruits, see Daisy Roots.
1969		S.T. Kendall Up the Frog 20: ’E ’itches up his round the ’ouses an’ shows orf ’is [...] posh pair o’ daisy roots.
1971		J. Jones Rhy. Cockney Sl.
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 20: Boots: daisies, or daisy roots.
1999		R. Walton ‘Cockney Jack’ 🌐 He got up and put on his throw me in the dirt, his wool fiddle and flute, his Jack-in-the-box and his daisy roots.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 52/2: daisy roots n pl. boots.
2002		B. Kirkpatrick Wicked Cockney Rhy. Sl. 45: King Canutes boots.
2003		Guardian Weekend 22 Feb. 7: Good luck to our daft and barmy [army] in their melting daisy roots [boots].