buskin

Apparently from Old French bousequin, variant of brousequin (compare modern French brodequin), probably from Middle Dutch broseken, of unknown origin.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʌskɪn/

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buskin (plural buskins)

1. (historical) A half-boot.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     She, having hong upon a bough on high / Her bow and painted quiver, had unlaste / Her silver buskins from her nimble thigh […]

   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 143:

     With this knife also, he will joynt a Deere, or any beast, shape his shooes, buskins, mantels, etc.

   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:

     Isaac, relieved of one half of his apprehensions, by learning that his daughter lived, and might possibly be ransomed, threw himself at the feet of the generous Outlaw, and, rubbing his beard against his buskins, sought to kiss the hem of his green cassock.

   • 1980, Colin Thubron, Seafarers: The Venetians, page 36:

     And Dandolo took for Venice three eights of the city, including the merchants' quarter, where a Venetian governor was soon strutting about in the scarlet buskins that had once been the prerogative of the Emperors of the East.

   • 1997, John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, Penguin, published 1998, page 248:

     Alexius was acclaimed with the imperial titles and formally shod with the purple buskins, embroidered in gold with the double-headed eagles of Byzantium [...].

2. (historical) A type of half-boot with a high heel, worn by the ancient Athenian tragic actors.
   • 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, pages 221–222:

     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 of the tragic protagonists, on the one hand, and the members of the chorus, on the other hand, was thus highly significant.

3. (by extension) Tragic drama; tragedy.
   • 1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers. […], copyright edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1859, →OCLC, page 148:

     Such an undertaking by no means benefits the low-heeled buskin of modern fiction.

4. An instrument of torture for the foot; bootikin.

• buskined
• sock and buskin