/ · 1894 Brewer’s · B · Buskin
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Tragedy. The Greek tragic actors used to wear a sandal some two or three inches thick, to elevate their stature. To this sole was attached a very elegant buskin, and the whole was called cothurʹnus. (See Sock.)
“Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.”
Milton: Il Penseroso, 79, 80.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.