different between buskin vs cothurnus

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?sk?n/

Noun

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.

   • 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.

English

Alternative forms

• cothurn

Etymology

From Latin cothurnus, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kóthornos)

Noun

cothurnus (plural cothurni)

1. A buskin used in ancient tragedy
2. The stilted style denoting ancient tragedy
   • 1875, Henry James, Roderick Hudson, New York Edition 1909, hardcover, page 410

     Madame Grandoni had insisted on the fact that she was an actress, and this little speech seemed a glimpse of the cothurnus.

Derived terms

• cothurnal

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ???????? (kóthornos).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ko?t?ur.nus/, [k??t???rn?s?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ko?tur.nus/, [k??t?urnus]

Noun

cothurnus m (genitive cothurn?); second declension

1. cothurnus, buskin
2. tragedy (dramatic or poetic style)

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Descendants

• ? English: cothurn
• Russian: ??????? (kotúrn)

References

• cothurnus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• cothurnus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cothurnus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• cothurnus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• cothurnus in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cothurnus in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin