transitive verb

• 1 literary Trick or deceive.

  ‘do not think to cozen your contemporaries’

  More example sentences

  • ‘This is how the deceivers are deceived, for he who can cozen me is shrewd indeed.’
  • ‘To be fair, the book is not a pulp romance, although it cozens its readers with the content of pulp romance.’
  • ‘Composition rights are subdivided into publishing rights, which record companies often cozen the unsuspecting into signing away.’
  • ‘A pamphlet of 1595 described how one Judith Philips ‘cozened’ a rich man.’
  • ‘There is a foolish country knight, Sir Nicholas Cully, whom two rogues cozen out of £1,000.’
  • ‘A good speech is not full of subtle rhetoric, cozening shifts in vocal tone, and facial nuance.’

  Synonyms

  deceive, delude, hoodwink, mislead, take in, dupe, fool, double-cross, cheat, defraud, swindle, outwit, outmanoeuvre, catch out, gull, hoax, bamboozle, beguile

  1. 1.1Obtain by deception.
     ‘he was able to cozen a profit’
     More example sentences

     • ‘There, world domination, monetary and military, is cozened.’