A metal device, usually mounted near a doorway, for scraping mud or dirt from the bottom of your shoes before entering a building.
From foot + scraper, combining foot with scrape (Old Norse 'skrapa'). Common in Victorian architecture from the 1800s onward.
Before doormats became universal, footscrapers were a status symbol—elaborate iron footscrapers outside grand homes showed owners cared about keeping their interiors clean, and they're still valued by antique collectors.
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