stocking feet

in (one's) stocking(ed) feet

Wearing only one's socks or stockings, but not one's shoes. I had just run out to grab the newspaper, but the door locked behind me. Now I'm stuck outside in my stockinged feet!
See also: feet
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

stocking feet

Wearing socks or stockings, but not shoes, as in I got locked out of the house in my stocking feet. [First half of 1800s]
See also: feet, stocking
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • at (one's) door
  • at door
  • at one's door
  • at doorstep
  • at (one's) doorstep
  • at (one's) expense
  • at expense
  • at somebody's expense
  • at someone's expense
  • be in somebody's good graces
References in classic literature
He had replaced his parka with his fur cap and blanket-cloth coat, kicked off his frozen moccasins, and was dancing in his stocking feet. After wetting himself to the knees late that afternoon, he had run on without changing his foot-gear, and to the knees his long German socks were matted with ice.
And for the rest of the night he danced on in his stocking feet, and at five in the morning, rapping thunderously on the door of his new partners' cabin, he could be heard singing the song that had given him his name:--
He followed Rosa in his stocking feet, walking on tiptoe.
I took off my shoes when I gained the forecastle head, and went noiselessly aft in my stocking feet. Nor did I call this time from the top of the companion-way.
But the whole effect is spoiled when I look at them - at Tetralani, five feet ten in her stocking feet and weighing a hundred and ninety pounds, and at Barillo, a scant five feet four, greasy-featured, with the chest of a squat, undersized blacksmith, and at the pair of them, attitudinizing, clasping their breasts, flinging their arms in the air like demented creatures in an asylum; and when I am expected to accept all this as the faithful illusion of a love-scene between a slender and beautiful princess and a handsome, romantic, young prince - why, I can't accept it, that's all.
She knew a small side door which she could unbolt herself and she flew downstairs in her stocking feet and put on her shoes in the hall.
For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never heard her before.
For many of us in the suburbs of the 21st century, it's hard to conceive of a world in which transportation is romantic, an exciting adventure in the midst of awe-inspiring industrial wizardry instead of a wearisome torment of snarled traffic at rush hour or the drudgery of long lines in stocking feet at the airport.
Bernard is a gifted enough player to have represented the most successful team in international football in the World Cup finals but at barely more than 5ft 4in in his stocking feet you're wasting your time trying to get him to battle in aerial duels.
There's a whole case of eversharp pencils about to go under the hammer IT'S ABOUT now that all those plastic novelties that flew out of countless Christmas crackers are all either lost down the back of your favourite armchair, eaten by the dog or else rediscovered when you step on one in stocking feet.
And the latest darling of Evertonians,Bernard Anicio Caldeira Duarteis little more than 5ft 4in in his stocking feet -- but then of course some of the best things come in small packages and Blues fans are already finding that out.
And the log cabin in Cholila, where they'd sat in the living room together in the evenings, Butch with his stocking feet up on the table while he read a book in his favorite chair.
Nicola McArthur, 40, was nabbed in the passenger's seat after she ran to her car in Johnstone in her stocking feet.
The nanny sits there on the silk sofa with the baby--she has never really liked babies, always wonders why people insist on burdening themselves with so many--kicking off her uncomfortable black patent-leather shoes and stretching out her slim, long legs until, aware from the odor that the baby needs his nappy changed, she gets up and pads in her stocking feet over to the window, which opens onto the terrace.
She seems comfortable in her stocking feet, but we can see the pair of wooden shoes she must have been wearing abandoned on the floor.