Sock [comedy]

The Greek comic actors used to wear a sandal and sock. The difference between the sock and the tragic buskin was this—the sock went only to the ankle, but the buskin extended to the knee. (See Buskin.)

“Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson’s learned sock be on.”

Milton: LʹAllegro.

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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.

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