BUSKIN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Buskin

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noun

Buskin n.

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."

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."

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Etymology of 'Buskin'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Buskin" Quotes from Famous Books

... The symptoms are showing all over him. Now he's backing Broadway plays, sponsoring beginning actresses, joining playwrights' groups—he's the only member of Buskin and Brush who's never written a play, acted in one, or so much as pulled the ...

— One-Shot • James Benjamin Blish

... in Leanerd's The Rambling Justice. Powre played Sir John Twiford; Disney, Contentious Surley; Mr. Q., Spywell; Mrs. Merchant, Petulant Easy; Mrs. Bates, Emilia. The Nursery disappears about 1686. Certainly in 1690 it was the custom for young aspirants to the sock and buskin to join the regular theatres without preliminary ...

— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... one praise concluded, 't were too weak To furnish out this turn. Mine eyes did look On beauty, such, as I believe in sooth, Not merely to exceed our human, but, That save its Maker, none can to the full Enjoy it. At this point o'erpower'd I fail, Unequal to my theme, as never bard Of buskin or of sock hath fail'd before. For, as the sun doth to the feeblest sight, E'en so remembrance of that witching smile Hath dispossess my spirit of itself. Not from that day, when on this earth I first Beheld her charms, up to that view of them, Have I with song applausive ever ceas'd ...

— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... 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. The god when he resolved to punish the ...

— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... square-shaped with a stage and galleries, for a 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 humors ...

— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

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