Protection footwear are historically any shoe that's built with a safety toe.  Initially, those have been product of steel and called “metal feet”, but now, we've safety footwear made with aluminum alloy, composite fiberglass, and carbon fiber (new) toecap.  These safety shoes have been in the beginning built to simply protect feet and have been examined to the ANSI(American National Standards Institute) requirements, however then the safety shoe standards were moved to the ASTM (American Standards for Testing and Materials).   
 
Through the years, safety shoes have morphed into several enormously specialized shoes which might be asked to do an awful lot extra than guard people’ toes.  There are metatarsal guards that guard the metatarsal bones inside the foot, electric threat to shield people from electric surprise, static dissipating that reduce the build-up of electrical static fee on workers, conductive that lessen the static rate in explosive environments, puncture resistant that save you punctures thru the sole, heat resistant that guard feet from hot environments, and slip-resistant that reduce slipping hazards. 
 
There may be additionally a similar term, “safe shoes” this is used to explain shoes built for particular safety needs that don’t have a safety toe.  Those include slip-resistant and static dissipating “smooth toe” footwear.