buskin (n.)

"knitted or woven covering for the foot, short stocking," Middle English sok, from Old English socc "slipper, light shoe," from Latin soccus "slipper, light low-heeled shoe," probably a variant of Greek sykkhos, word for a kind of shoe, perhaps from Phrygian or another Asiatic language. Beekes pointes to a source that "supposes a loan from the Caucasus, which may also be found in Av[estan] haxa- [n.] 'sole of the foot' ...." The Latin word was borrowed generally in West Germanic (Middle Dutch socke, Dutch sok, Old High German soc, German Socke).

Also in reference to the kind of light shoe worn by ancient actors in comedy, hence, in phrases, sock as "comedy" as distinct from "tragedy" (represented by buskin). To knock the socks off (someone) "beat thoroughly" is recorded from 1845, American English colloquial. Colloquial put a sock in it "stop speaking" is by 1919. Teen slang sock hop is c. 1950, from dancing shoeless.

"itinerant entertainer," 1857, from busk (v.) "to offer goods for sale only in bars and taprooms," 1851 (in Mayhew), which is perhaps from busk "to cruise as a pirate," which was used in a figurative sense by 1841, in reference to people living shiftless and peripatetic lives; compare the nautical sense of busk (v.). Busker has been mistakenly derived from buskin in the stage sense.