Surely, I cannot be the only person to have wondered, in idle moments, why mules – backless shoes, often embellished and preferably decorative; more Cinderella slipper than sturdy clodhopper – should be named after the stubborn offspring of a donkey and a horse. Finally I applied myself to the task of discovering the origins of the word. The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology explains that it derives instead from the Latin, calceus mulleus, the red, high-soled shoes worn by Roman patricians.

The subsequent history of the mule bears out its aristocratic origins, for this was a design popular in the 17th century and onward among wealthy Europeans, both men and women, who presumably did not have to trudge to work. (That the mule was also, essentially, insouciant – downright saucy, at times – is apparent in the 18th-century painting by Fragonard, “The Swing,” which shows a pretty girl in a frothy pink dress, one of her rococo mules flying off her foot, while a young nobleman peeks up her skirt.

Nowadays, mules are more mass-market. I reserve my favorite high-heeled feather-trimmed pair for parties, rather than offices. You could try flat mules as a more practical alternative; though I’m not quite sure what constitutes the dividing line between those and a slipper; personal semantics, I suspect.

But now, certainly, is a good moment to buy and enjoy them. If you find the right ones, they can be comfortable as well as chic. Kitten-heeled mules, I think, are the way forward, as well as this season’s ubiquitous wedges; both of them easier to manage than spindly stilettos, whether on pavements or grass.