Although a nineteenth century American lexicographer described sneakers as "shoes with canvas tops and rubber soles," the vernacular meaning has come to include any shoe with natural or synthetic rubber soles. Uppers can be of leather, nylon, canvas, plastic, or combinations of these. Alternative names for sneakers include tennis shoes, gym shoes, plimsolls, felony shoes, cross trainers, boat shoes, and running shoes. The most popular type of shoe, sneakers accounted for just over a third of all shoes sold in 1996 according to Sporting Goods Marketing Association.

Modern sneakers have beginnings in various sports shoes. One ancestor is the expensive British upper-class footwear of the late 1800s, used for lawn tennis, cricket, croquet, and at the beach. Worn by both sexes, these canvas or leather lace-up oxfords—or high tops—had rubber soles. By the end of the nineteenth century they were priced for the...