Verb: cozen
Pronunciation: (kú-zun)
Cozen meaning:
- Be false to or be dishonest with.
- Act with artful deceit.
- Cheat or trick. To deceive or induce to do something by shrewd trickery or artful coaxing.
Synonyms: deceive, delude, cozen
Derived forms: cozened, cozening, cozens
Quotations: William Bolitho – The shortest way out of Manchester is notoriously a bottle of Gordon’s gin; out of any businessman’s life there is the mirage of Paris; out of Paris, or mediocrity of talent and imagination, there are all the drugs, from subtle, all conquering opium to cheating, cozening cocaine.
Firdausi – Women are ever masters when they like, and cozen with their kindness; they have spells superior to the wand of the magicians; and from their lips the words of wisdom fall, like softest music on the listening ear.
Robert Burton – Smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes.
Edward Herbert – The exercises I wholly condemn are dicing and carding, especially if you play for any great sum of money, or spend any time in them, or use to come to meetings in dicing-houses, where cheaters meet and cozen young gentlemen out of all their money.
Thomas Fuller – Cheaters must get some credit before they can cozen, and all falsehood, if not founded in some truth, would not be fixed in any belief.
Sample sentences:
- She cozened the money out of the old woman.
- They cozen themselves with vain hopes and wishes.
- It goes a great way towards making a man faithful to let him understand that you think him so, and he that does but so much as suspect that I will deceive him gives me a sort of right to cozen him.
- They have cozened their supper out of the old couple.
- She has cozened several elderly men into believing that she was intending marriage.
- I wish I could see the woman that could cozen me.
- The people of this country are yet to be convinced that they have been cozened and deceived by the government.
- She had cozened the world by sweet talk and fine phrases.
- Some think to cozen him. He is not a man easily cozened, however.
- And the beauty of the pearl, winking and glimmering in the light of the little candle, cozened his brain with its beauty.