A sabot is a wooden shoe like the one seen above. These shoes were popular among the lower classes of the 19th century and often seen on the feet of the factory workers. One group of people that wore shoes like this were Luddites, a religious group that spurned any advancement in technology. They took it upon themselves to try and stall the industrialization of civilization by under taking planned acts of destruction.

Their targets were the fancy new stocking and weaving machines in textile mills of England. They would take their wooden shoes and toss them into the machines breaking them and causing general chaos. And eventually the term became used to mean any kind of purposeful destruction.