Adjacent Words

Cozen definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

COZEN, v.t.
1. To cheat; to defraud.
He that suffers a government to be abused by carelessness and neglect, does the same thing with him that corruptly sets himself to cozen it.
2. To deceive; to beguile.
Children may be cozened into a knowledge of the letters.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: be false to; be dishonest with [syn: deceive, lead on, delude, cozen]
2: act with artful deceit
3: cheat or trick; "He cozened the money out of the old man"

Merriam Webster's

transitive verb (cozened; cozening) Etymology: perhaps from obsolete Italian cozzonare, from Italian cozzone horse trader, from Latin cocion-, cocio trader Date: 1573 1. to deceive, win over, or induce to do something by artful coaxing and wheedling or shrewd trickery 2. to gain by cozening someone <cozened his supper out of the old couple> Synonyms: see cheat • cozener noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v. literary 1 tr. (often foll. by of, out of) cheat, defraud. 2 tr. (often foll. by into) beguile; persuade. 3 intr. act deceitfully. Derivatives: cozenage n. Etymology: 16th-c. cant, perh. rel. to COUSIN

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cozen Coz"en (k?z"'n), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cozened (-'nd); p. pr. & vb. n. Cozening (-'n-?ng). ] [From cousin, hence, literally, to deceive through pretext of relationship, F. cousiner.] To cheat; to defraud; to beguile; to deceive, usually by small arts, or in a pitiful way. He had cozened the world by fine phrases. --Macaulay. Children may be cozened into a knowledge of the letters. --Locke. Goring loved no man so well but that he would cozen him, and expose him to public mirth for having been cozened. --Clarendon.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cozen Coz"en, v. i. To deceive; to cheat; to act deceitfully. Some cogging, cozening slave. --Shak.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. a. Cheat, trick, defraud, deceive, swindle, chouse, dupe, gull, overreach, circumvent, beguile, victimize, take in, impose upon.

Moby Thesaurus

beat, beguile, beguile of, betray, bilk, bunco, burn, cheat, chisel, chouse, chouse out of, cog, cog the dice, con, crib, defraud, delude, diddle, do, do in, do out of, double-cross, euchre, finagle, flam, fleece, flimflam, fob, fudge, gouge, gull, gyp, have, hocus, hocus-pocus, humbug, mislead, mulct, overreach, pack the deal, pigeon, practice fraud upon, rook, scam, screw, sell gold bricks, sell out, shave, shortchange, stack the cards, stick, sting, swindle, take a dive, take in, thimblerig, throw a fight, victimize