Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A buskin worn by actors of classical tragedy.
- noun The ancient style of classical tragedy.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The buskin of the Greeks and Romans.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Same as
cothurn .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
buskin used in ancienttragedy - noun The
stilted style denoting ancient tragedy
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy.
Every Man in His Humor Ben Jonson 1605
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The host whose dust inurned has slumbered treads not on week – days the cothurnus.
Peer Gynt 2008
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The host whose dust inurned has slumbered treads not on week – days the cothurnus.
Peer Gynt 2008
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The _baxa_ was a coarse sandal made of twigs, used by philosophers and comic actors; the _calcæus_ was a shoe that covered the foot, though the toes were often exposed; and the _cothurnus_, a laced boot worn by horsemen, hunters, men of authority, and tragic actors, and it left the toes likewise exposed.
The Story of Rome from the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic Arthur Gilman
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Coppe's sandals were no more durable than the fleeting rose, and whenever a fair dame came to show her torn cothurnus to the great Coppe he replied sadly, "The evil is irremediable: madame has been walking!"
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The Jack Pudding suddenly drew the _cothurnus_ over his clogs.
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At the same epoch the ladies who had fallen in love with Greek and Roman fashions had abandoned the old-fashioned shoe in order to adopt the cothurnus; and
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In their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson, or mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too often do.
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The countenances have an impassive and fixed expression, as the tragic actor, in the Greek theatre, assumed mask and cothurnus, and chanted the solemn lines to a recitative.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 11: New Mexico-Philip 1840-1916 1913
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He stepped off the high-heeled cothurnus, and came down into common life; he held out his great hearty arms, and embraced us all; he had a bow for all women; a kiss for all children; a shake of the hand for all men, high or low; he showed us Heavens sun shining every day on quiet homes; not gilded palace roofs only, or court processions, or heroic warriors fighting for princesses and pitched battles.
On Charity and Humor 1906
jinglebelljosie commented on the word cothurnus
An ancient Greek buskin
September 17, 2008