buskin

noun

1. (historical)A soft boot reaching to calf or knee height.

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

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

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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. A 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.
3. (historical)A 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.

   “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.”

4. (broadly)Tragic drama; tragedy.

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

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