Also 6–7 buske. [a. F. busc, of uncertain origin. Scheler regards it as a doublet of F. bois wood:—late L. boscum (see BUSH sb.1); cf. the related F. bûche, OF. busche fem., splinter of wood. In Fr. as in Eng. the word was formerly sometimes used for the whole corset, and Littré considers it cognate with It. busto (see BUST); but this is unsatisfactory with regard to both sense and form.]
A strip of wood, whalebone, steel, or other rigid material passed down the front of a corset, and used to stiffen and support it. Formerly and still dial. applied also to the whole corset.
1592. Warner, Alb. Eng., VII. xxxvi. 175. Her face was Maskt … her bodie pent with buske.
1611. Cotgr., Buc, a buske, plated bodie, or other quilted thing, worne to make, or keepe, the bodie straight.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 94/2. A Busk … is a strong peece of Wood, or Whalebone thrust down the middle of the Stomacker.
1755. Mrs. C. Clarke, Autobiog. (1827), 64. The want of which latter instrument of death [a dagger] I once saw supplied with a lady’s busk; who had just presence of mind sufficient to draw it from her stays.
1786. Misc. Ess., in Ann. Reg., 125/2. Whale bone and busks, which martyr European girls, they know not.
1824. Craven Dial., 15. I lost my hollin busk, finely flower’d.
1862. Mayhew, Crim. Prisons, 40. Bundles of wooden busks, and little bits of whalebone.
Hence † Busk-point. ‘The lace, with its tag, which secured the end of the busk’ (Nares). Obs.
1599. Marston, Sc. Villanie, II. viii. 213. I saw him court his Mistresse looking-glasse, Worship a busk-point.
1612. Chapman, Widdowes T., Plays, 1873, III. 43. Certaine morall disguises of coinesse … ye borrow of art to couer your buske points.
a. 1667. Wither, Passion of Love. He … doth crave her To grant him but a busk-point for a favour.
