Once, I Laughed My Socks Off
— Children's poem by Steve Attewell
Sock has a long and interesting connection with comedy. Socc came into Old English from Latin soccus, which meant a light shoe, or a slipper. The Latin word was probably from Ancient Greek sukkhos (συκχος), presumably also meaning a light shoe, perhaps borrowed from Phrygian or the language of a neighbouring people.
Now it seems that in Ancient Greek theatre actors in comedy wore light sykkhous, in contrast to actors in tragedy, who wore a heavier cothurnus, a kind of boot, translated into modern English as 'buskins'.
These became symbols of the theatre and have carried over into English in the traditional expression 'the sock and buskin'. From Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755)
The shoe of the ancient comick actors, taken in poems for comedy, and opposed to buskin or tragedy.
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