buskin
/ˈbʌskɪn
/noun chiefly historical
1A calf-high or knee-high boot of cloth or leather.Now she was vested for the anointing; buskins, sandals and girdle put on, and over all a tabard of white sarsnet, the vestment called the colobium sindonis....
- Headdresses were extravagantly plumed helmets or crowns fusing baroque and classical styles, and the masquers were shod in tightly fitting short boots, or buskins.
- Buskins are presumed by Strutt to have resembled "the shoes of the carpenter's wife in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales," which the poet says 'were laced high upon her legs'.
1.1A thick-soled laced boot worn by an ancient Athenian tragic actor to gain height.Superficially, the play follows The Tempest's plot-line and uses Philoctetes’ setting, but this isn't just Shakespeare in Greek buskins....
- Consequently I may have used evidence for the Greek buskin which belonged to the Roman cotzhurnus.
- The buskin was used by actors when playing tragedy, its high raised sole making the player more conspicuous
1.2 (the buskin) The style or spirit of tragic drama.The two books under review do get rid of the buskin and aureole....
- Does the buskin fit ONeill?
- In France, tragedy was elevated on her loftiest buskin.
Derivatives
buskined
/ adjective ...- Again did my mistress’ needs drag me from these labours, and the buskined poet by Cupid was undone.
- Below the knee his legs were naked, ending in a buskined moccasin, that fitted tightly round the ankle.
- I just hope that the Bishops’ conferences won't drag their buskined feet over it, hoping that Pope Benedict will conveniently die, and the whole project be dropped.
Origin
Early 16th century (designating a calf-length boot): probably from Old French bouzequin, variant of brousequin, from Middle Dutch broseken, of unknown ultimate origin.