Zori

 
Here in the UK a thong is a small (or to be accurate, very small) item of ladies' underwear. In Australia thongs are what are known in other countries as jandals, flip-flops, etc. (see GB's post on the subject). I recently discovered that there is yet another name for a similar form of footwear - Zori.


Zori are flat and thonged Japanese sandals made of rice straw or other plant fibres, cloth, lacquered wood, leather, rubber, or—increasingly—synthetic materials. Zōri are quite similar to flip-flops, which first appeared in the United States sometime around World War II as rubber imitations of the wooden thong sandals long worn in Japan.

It sounds to me like a good word for Scrabble.

Zori are defined in "The Superior Person's Book of Words" by Peter Bowler as follows:-
"...that peculiarly aestival form of footwear commonly employed for the purpose of jamming the wearer's foot underneath brake pedals, tripping him up in public places and upon acutely serrated seaside rock-formations, and rendering the sound of his coming and going akin to that of a flock of migrating ducks."