A snowshoe is a wide flat frame that you strap onto your boot so you can walk on deep soft snow without sinking into it. The idea is simple: your foot is narrow, so all your weight presses down on a small spot and you sink. The snowshoe spreads that same weight over a much bigger area, so the snow holds you up. Traditional ones were a bent wooden hoop with strips of animal hide woven across, a bit like a tennis racket; modern ones are aluminium and plastic. They almost always come in pairs, so you will usually see the word as snowshoes. Walking in them is slow and you have to swing your legs wide, but it lets hikers and hunters cross country that would otherwise be impossible. Snowshoeing is a popular winter activity in mountain areas, easier to learn than skiing. The word is also a verb — to snowshoe somewhere — and it appears in the animal name snowshoe hare, a hare with very large back feet that work the same way.