buskin

plural buskins

1. historicalA soft boot reaching to calf or knee height.

   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

   4 more examples

   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

   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.

   1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC

   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.

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

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

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

2. CatholicismA 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. historicalA 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.

   1 more example

   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.

   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

   Synonyms: cothurn, cothurnus, Melpomene

4. broadlyTragic 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.