buskin

Noun

buskin (plural buskins)

1. (historical) A soft boot reaching to calf or knee height.
   • She, having hong upon a bough on high / Her bow and painted quiver, had unlaste / Her silver buskins from her nimble thigh […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
   • With this knife also, he will joynt a Deere, or any beast, shape his shooes, buskins, mantels, etc.1624, Iohn [i.e., John] Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: […], London: […] I[ohn] D[awson] and I[ohn] H[aviland] for Michael Sparkes, →OCLC
2. A pontifical vestment in the form of a silk stocking, sometimes embroidered or interwoven with gold thread, reaching to the base of the knee and worn over one’s regular socks but under episcopal sandals.

   Synonyms:

   caliga

3. (historical) A type of soft calf- or knee-high boot that laces up the front, sometimes featuring open toes or thick soles, worn in the Greco-Roman world by hunters and horsemen, as well as by actors in Athenian tragedy.
   • One thing we do know about the staging of Greek plays is that the tragic actors wore buskins on their feet that elevated them several inches above the ground. (They also wore masks.) But the members of the chorus did not wear buskins, though the sometimes wore masks. The comparison between the size...1972, Mortimer J. Adler with Charles Van Doren, chapter 15, in How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, Touchstone September 2014 edition, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, →OCLC...

   Synonyms:

   cothurn, cothurnus, Melpomene

4. (broadly) Tragic drama; tragedy.
   • Such an undertaking by no means benefits the low-heeled buskin of modern fiction.1857, Anthony Trollope, “Ullathorne Sports—Act II”, in Barchester Towers. […], copyright edition, volume II, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1859, →OCLC, pages 184–185
5. An instrument of torture for the foot; bootikin.