cothurnus
Americannoun
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Etymology
Origin of cothurnus
1720–30; < Latin < Greek kóthornos buskin, type of boot worn by tragic actors in heroic roles
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson, or mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too often do.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 by Various
Like the Greek actor before masks were invented, the Chinese actor paints his face, and the thick-soled boot which raises the Chinese tragedian from the ground is very much the counterpart of the cothurnus.
From China and the Chinese by Giles, Herbert Allen
The buskin was the Greek cothurnus, a boot with high heels, designed to add stature and dignity to the tragic actor.
From Six Centuries of English Poetry Tennyson to Chaucer by Baldwin, James
She wears the cothurnus, and her head is wreathed with vine leaves.
From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
They never speak except ore rotundo, in cothurnus, or sometimes on stilts.
From Amiel's Journal by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
Oepidus comes forth, in his stately cothurni and promises that what can be done will be done.
From Time Magazine Archive
He brushed the dust off her cothurni; he wanted her to put a quarter of a pomegranate between her lips; he heaped up garments behind her head to make a cushion for her.
From Salammbo by Flaubert, Gustave
Throwing his rein to the porter, Sergius entered the court of the atrium, vacant and resounding to the hurried tread of his cothurni.
From The Lion's Brood by Osborne, Duffield
Comedians wore the socci or slippers, and tragedians the cothurni.
From Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology For Classical Schools (2nd ed) by Dillaway, Charles K.
Matho had relapsed into his former melancholy; his legs hung down to the ground, and the grass made a continuous rustling as it beat against his cothurni.
From Salammbo by Flaubert, Gustave
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
