A gumboot is a tall boot made of rubber, or something like rubber, that you wear to keep your feet dry. You put them on for rain, mud, farms, paddocks, and deep puddles. The word is most at home in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. In Britain people often say wellingtons or wellies; in the United States, rubber boots or rain boots. Same kind of boot, different local names. “Gum” here means the rubber, not chewing gum — though actually both sit on an older meaning of gum as a sticky stuff. They are workaday and slightly country in feel, not dress shoes.