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Buskin   Listen
noun
Buskin  n.  
1.
A strong, protecting covering for the foot, coming some distance up the leg. "The hunted red deer's undressed hide Their hairy buskins well supplied."
2.
A similar covering for the foot and leg, made with very thick soles, to give an appearance of elevation to the stature; worn by tragic actors in ancient Greece and Rome. Used as a symbol of tragedy, or the tragic drama, as distinguished from comedy. "Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, No greater Jonson dares in socks appear."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Buskin" Quotes from Famous Books



... wild whillaloo That oft smacked of "Killaloe," The contagious wrath of Buskin and of Sock Hath abated for awhile, And no more the Emerald Isle On the stage and in the green-room seems to shock. The curtain is rung down, The comedian and the clown, With the sombre putter-on of tragic airs, Are gone, with all the cast, And the Theatre, at last, Is "Closed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various

... obtain some iron tools. The behaviour of one of the fair sex created considerable surprise. She had sold one boot, but obstinately retained the other. At length the suspicions of the seamen being aroused, she was seized and the buskin pulled off, when it proved to be a receptacle of stolen treasure. Besides other articles, it contained a pewter plate and a couple ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... have read of Since Cribb, years ago, half knock'd Molyneux's head off. But my dainty Urania says, "Such things are shocking!" Lace mittens she loves, Detesting "The Gloves;" And turning, with air most disdainfully mocking, From Melpomene's buskin, adopts the silk stocking. So, as far as I can see, I must leave you to "fancy" The thumps, and the bumps, and the ups and the downs, And the taps, and the slaps, and the raps on the crowns, That ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... be, then; though with such a February night on one side, it takes all your power on the other to draw me out of this chair. You don't look much like Comedy, and I am very little like the great buskin-wearer—but I would as lieve Tragedy had me by the other shoulder as February, when his fingers have been so very long away from the fire. Did you ever read Thomson's ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... jargon-company sometimes thrilled the Ghetto with tragedy and tickled it with farce. Both species were playing to-night, and in jargon to boot. In real life you always get your drama mixed, and the sock of comedy galls the buskin of tragedy. It was an episode in the pitiful tussle of hunger and greed, yet its ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... See Tertullian, De Spectaculis. This severe reformer shows no more indulgence to a tragedy of Euripides, than to a combat of gladiators. The dress of the actors particularly offends him. By the use of the lofty buskin, they impiously strive to add a cubit to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... autobiographical date-book and diary, "the sword for the pen, and the glow of the Champ de Mars for the glimmer of a kerosene lamp." And yet not with the inclination of Burgoyne, or other military gentlemen who have courted the buskin and sock! On the contrary, so foreign was the occupation to his leaning, that often a whimsical light in his eye betrayed his disinclination and modest disbelief in his own fitness for the task. "He said the way I laid out an act reminded him of planning a campaign, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... play; but I hope it will prove a farce, nevertheless, before it's over. We are to have a pic-nic party upon one of those little islands up the river by Kew. All sock and buskin, all theatricals: if the wherries upset, the Hay-market may shut up, for it will be 'exeunt omnes' with all its best performers. Look you, Jacob, we shall want three wherries, and I leave you to pick out the other two—oars in each, of course. You must ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... sing the divine wrath of Mr Slope, or how invoke the tragic muse to describe the rage which swelled the celestial bosom of the bishop's chaplain? Such an undertaking by no means befits the low-heeled buskin of modern fiction. The painter put a veil over Agamemnon's face when called on to depict the father's grief at the early doom of his devoted daughter. The god, when he resolved to punish the rebellions winds, abstained from mouthing empty threats. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... played Hamlet and other tragic characters; but the critics we have read seem so intent upon his excellence in the sock, that they forget to say anything particular of his merits in the buskin. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various



Words linked to "Buskin" :   top boot, boot, combat boot, desert boot



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