buskin

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʌskɪn/

buskin (plural buskins)

1. (historical) A half-boot.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.6:

     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, in Kupperman 1988, p. 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 1998, p. 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.
3. (by extension) Tragic drama; tragedy.
   • 1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, Volume the Second, page 148 →ISBN

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

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