Definition of cozen in English:
cozen
See synonyms for cozen on Thesaurus.comtransitive verb
[with object]1 literary Trick or deceive.
‘do not think to cozen your contemporaries’- ‘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.’
deceive, delude, hoodwink, mislead, take in, dupe, fool, double-cross, cheat, defraud, swindle, outwit, outmanoeuvre, catch out, gull, hoax, bamboozle, beguile- 1.1Obtain by deception.‘he was able to cozen a profit’
- ‘There, world domination, monetary and military, is cozened.’
Pronunciation
Origin
Late 16th century perhaps from obsolete Italian cozzonare ‘to cheat’, from cozzone ‘middleman, broker’, from Latin cocio ‘dealer’.
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