interfering in female business, a cotquean, adding, "each of the sexes should keep within its bounds." See QUEAN. It seems to have meant also a hen pecked husband, which suits the same derivation. COTSALE. A corruption of Cotswold, open downs in Gloucestershire, very favorable for coursing. French law was the same as roturier. Himself goes patch'd like some bare cottyer, †To COUCH. To lay, to place together. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say of James I. See DOVER. A sheep was jocularly called a Cotsold Lo then the mystery from whence the name To COTTON. Epigr., B. iii, Ep. 18. To succeed, to go on prosperously: a metaphor, probably, from the finishing of cloth, which when it cottons, or rises to a regular nap, is nearly or quite complete. It is often joined with geer, which is also a technical and manufacturing term. Still mistress Dorothy! This geer will cotton. B. Fl. Mons. Tho., iv, 8. Now, Hephestion, doth not this matter cotton as I would. Lyly's Alex. & Camp., iii, 4, O. Pl., ii, 122. It cottens well, it cannot choose but beare A pretty napp. Family of Love, D, 3 b. This is exact to the presumed origin of the phrase. Sometimes, by a still further extension of the metaphor, it meant to agree: Styles and I cannot cotten. Hist. of Capt. Stukely, B, 2 b. Else the matter would cotten but ill favouredly with our loving mother, the holy church. Beehive of Rom. Ch., R r, 7. Swift seems to be the latest authority for the word. +How this geare will cotten, I know not. True Tragedie of Ric. III, 1594. Troubl. Raigne of King John, p. 1. The place, manor house, or farme of husbandrie, †COVE. This cant term for a man is The rule and recorder, Witts Recreations, 1654. COVENT. Old French, as well as Neither doe I now speake of my selfe and my covent, Sermons, fol. 92 b. Coventry is not supposed to be derived I have lost my thimble, and a skein of Coventry blue COVENTRY CROSS. This splendid Her walls in good repair, her ports so bravely built, Her halls in good estate, her cross so richly gilt. Polyolb., xiii, p. 922. +COVERING-SEEDS. The old popular name for a well-known description of sweetmeats. To make each sort of comfits, vulgarly called coveringseeds, &c., with sugar.-You must provide a pan of brass or tin, to a good depth, made with ears to hang over a chafing dish of coals, with a ladle and slice of the same metal; then cleanse your seeds from dross, and take the finest sugar well beaten; put to each quarter of a pound of seeds, two pounds of sugar; the seeds being first well dried, and your sugar melted in this order, put into the pan three pounds of sugar, adding a pint of spring water, stirring it till it be moistened, and suffer it to melt well over a clear fire till it ropes, after that, set it upon hot embers, not suffering it to boil, and so from your ladle let it drop upon the seeds, and keep the bason wherein they are continually moving, and between every coat rub and dry them as well as may be; and when they have taken the up and by the motion are rolled into sugar, order, dry them in an oven, or before a fire, and they will be hard and white. The Rich Closet of Rarities. COVETISE. Covetousness, Fr. But you think, Curius, "Tis covetise hath wrought me? if you love me Used also by Spenser. +But, the chiefe end, this precept aims at, is Du Bartas. To quench in us the coals of covetize. + Pigmalion, a sinfull wretch of all that ever raignde, Whom coretise did blinde so sore, and rage of furie strainde, That unaware, with privie knife before the altars pure, He slew Sicheus, and of his sisters love he thought Where purchase comes by covin and deceit. Historie of Albino and Bellama, 1638. COULD. The old preterite of can or con, to know: now used chiefly as an auxiliary sign of a mood. Often written without the l. See COUTH. That he had found out one, their soveraign lord to be, sworn. And what they did there must be counsel to me, And I made haste home; but I got a good piece Ballad of Robin Hood and Clorinda. A portrait of a person was sometimes called a copy of his countenance. +COUNTENANCE. I must be bold to tell you I took it rather as a copy of your countenance than any thought could take its original from the discretion I ever own'd you lady of. Osborne's Works, ed. 1673, p. 540. +COUNTER. There were two prisons called the Counter in the city of London; one in the Poultry, the other in Wood-street. The captains of this insurrection Have tane themselves to armes, and cam but now There was also a Counter in Southwark. Five jayles or prisons are in Southwarke plac'd, +COUNTER-BOOK. Though base and trebles, fortune did me grant, +To COUNTER-RUSH. A gentleman who was none of the wisest was deputed Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614. +COUNTERFAIT. An insincere convert? A drunken Christian and a Jewish Christian being at tearmes of brabble, the drunkard call'd the counterfait a drunken companion, and the counterfaite called him a Jew. The next day they met againe, and the drunkard then said unto the Jew: Sirrah, take thy Jew to thyselfe, and restore me my drunkard againe. Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614. COUNTERFEIT. A portrait; a like counter-gate; which is as hateful to me as the reek of +COUNTERLET. Perhaps a bye-path. He all this time was content, tooke the chalke in his B. Jons. Induct. to Barth. Fair. COUNTERPOINT, now changed to counterpane. A covering for a bed, formed in regular divisions. From the same word in French. Latined by Coles, "Cadurcum contrapunctum." The change of the last syllable to pane, probably arose from the idea of panes, or square openings, applied also to some parts of dress. In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns; +COUNTER-STRIVE. To strive to- He that his wife will counterwait and watch. Near the end of the first part he has an epitaph, entitled, "Upon our Age's Messalina, insatiat Madona, the matchless English Corombona," p. 99. In this poem the chief features of her delinquency are touched with a strong hand. She was tried with her husband, and condemned, in 1616; but both were pardoned afterwards, to the everlasting disgrace of James. COUNTY, for count; or a nobleman in general. A ring the county wears, That downward hath succeeded in his house, All's Well, iii, 7. Gismund, who loves the countie Palurin. Arg. to Tancr. & Gism., O. Pl., ii, p. 165. Run after that same peevish messenger, Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea courb and woo, for leave to do it good. Haml., iii, 4. They coure so over the coles, theyr eyes be bleard with smooke. It is so spelt by Spenser also. +To COURSE. To beat with a stick. Accommodé. Fitted, apted, applied; furnished, accommodated; also, helped, assisted; also coursed, or Cotgrave. cudgelled. +COURSE-A-PARK. A country game At course-a-park, without all doubt, Witts Recreations. The following is a curious enumeration At doore expecting him his mother sate, And with such thoughts gladly her selfe abuses: They use no rost, but for themselves and their hous hold; nor no fire, but a little court chimnie in their owne chamber. Greene's Quip, &c., Harl. Misc., v, 414, repr. Or else it was something of a stove. +COURT-CUP. The meaning of the word is not quite clear in the first of these extracts. Marry, hee doth not use to weare a night-cap, for his hornes will not let him; and yet I know a hundred, as well headed as he, that will make a jolly shift with a court-cup on their crownes, if the weather bee colde. Nashe's Pierce Penilesse, 1592, Let it dry in an ashen dish, otherwise call'd a courtcup, and let it stand in the dish till it be dry, and it will be like a saucer. True Gentlewoman's Delight, 1676. COURT-CUPBOARD. Apparently a kind of moveable closet or buffet, in which plate and other articles of luxury were displayed. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate. Rom. and Jul., i, 5. Place that a watch] o' the court-cupboard, let it lie Full in the view of her thief-whorish eye. Roaring G., O. PL., vi, 77. Here shall stand my court-cupboard, with its furniture of plate. Mons. D'Olive, Anc. Dr., iii, 394. Elsewhere it is called a cupboard of plate: Is the cupboard of plate set out? A Trick to catch, &c., Anc. Dr., v, 217. It was therefore evidently moveable, and only brought out on certain occasions. It was sometimes adorned with carved figures: With a lean visage, like a carved face On a court-cupboard. Corbet, Iter Boreale, p. 2. Golden and gilded beakers, cruzes, great cups, crystal COURT HOLY-WATER. A proverbial phrase for flattery, and fine words. without deeds; borrowed from the French, who have their eau bénite de la cour, in the same sense. Ray has it in his Proverbs, p. 184. "On O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Lear, iii, 2. Coles renders it in Latin, "Promissa rei expertia, fumus aulicus." The Diction. Comique of Le Roux thus defines the French phrase: dit d'un homme qui fait beaucoup de complimens, ou de promesses sur lesquelles il ne faut pas faire grand fondement, que c'est de l'eau bénite de la cour, parcequ'on n'est point chiche de belles promesses à la cour, non plus que d'eau bénite à l'église.' The phrase is still current in France. In 1812 appeared a comedy by M. Picard, the title of which was Les Prometteurs, ou l'Eau bénite de la Cour, of which an account is given in the Esprit des Journaux for October, 1812, p. 59. Eau bénite de la cave, is now jocularly used for strong liquors. COURTLAX, or CURTLAX. A short, crooked sword; one of the various forms which have been given in English to the French word coutelas, as curtleaxe, &c., many of them implying some reference to an axe, though coutelas is made only from cultellus. His curtlar by his thigh, short, hooked, fine. Fairf. Tasso, ix, 82. +COURT-NAP. An outside polish? We are cheated by a court-nap. Shirley's Gentleman of Venice, 1655. A COURTNOLL. Some appendage to a court, but what does not appear. Now every lowt must have his son a courtnoll. Greene's Quip, &c. In the Harl. Misc., vol. v, p. 403, ed. 1810, it is explained, "with a head dressed like that of a courtier;" but the son is said to be, not to wear or have, a courtnoll, which seems to preclude that interpretation. Though ich am not zo zeemlie chwot, Howell's Arbor of Amitie, 1568. +COURTSHIPMENT. Then she relates how Cælia †COURTY. A courtier. courties. I cannot play the fool rightly, I mean, the physician, Well couth hee tune his pipe, and frame his still. E. K., who probably was Spenser "Couth cometh of the verb conne, to A little flocke, but well my pipe they couth, +COW. "In our common law," says Did'st thou not say even nowe, That Carisophus, my master, was no man, but a cowe, In takinge so many blowes, and give never a blow agayn. Dam. and Pith., O. Pl., i, 215. The derivation of coward is doubted. It certainly might come from couard, French. But Menage says that couhart is German for it, and is made from cou and hart, which is the same as the English, cow-heart. It may therefore be either derived from the German, or originally English. A cow is notoriously a timid animal, considering her strength and formidable appearance. We find here cowe used alone, in the sense of coward, and shall see cowish also, for timid. would not go further for a derivation. I Codardo, in Italian, is clearly made from coda, one that drops his tail in fear, or remains in the tail or rear of the army; the French word may be made from it, and the English from that; or the resemblance may be casual. See Todd, who has much on the subject. [There can be no doubt that the English word is derived from the French, or Anglo-Norman, and these "doubts" about it deserve no attention.] +COWCUMBER was the old mode of spelling cucumber, most in use. Cucumis, cucumer Concombre. A cowcumber. Nomenclator, 1585. Why, sir, doe you meane to ingulfe your selfe ? for Gods sake let us goe by land, there you shall want nothing for the comfort of your stomack: sallat, radish, scalions, capres, sweet fennell, snailes, frogges, cittrons, greene cittrons, and cittrons in conserve, greene cowcombers, and those in pickle, excellent millions, orenges, sardinoes fresh and salt, anchovaes, and macharell. The Passenger of Benvenuto, 1612. A garden of cowcummers, melopepon. It is the cowish tenor of his spirit A paire of buskins they did bring And lin'd with purple-violet. Musarum Delicia, 1656. By which he was discerned To be one of the learned. Vol. viii, p. 56, ed. Giff. +Although we thus did th' heaving Spaniards boxe, We lost noe man but only captaine Core. MS. addit., 14825, p. 246, Brit. Mus. COXCOMB, that is, cock's comb. The cap of the licensed fool was often terminated at the top with a cock's head and comb, and some of the feathers. Hence it was often used for the cap itself. The fool in Lear, There, take my corcomb; why this fellow has banished Therefore it was often jocularly used He has broken my head across, and given sir Toby a As many corcombs as you threw caps up, will he It is clearly an error to put this as the first sense. Afterwards, indeed, it came to mean a foolish conceited fellow, as it still does. Minshew exactly illustrates the primitive sense. +COXON. The coxswain on shipboard. About two o'clock in the morning, letters came from Withals' Dictionarie, ed. 1608, p. 101. To COY. To decoy, allure, or flatter. COWISH. Dastardly, timid. This word is abundantly and judi |
