chouse

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The Portugalls have choused us The word chouse appears to have been introduced into the language at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

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Definitions (8)

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  1. A Turkish interpreter, messenger, or attendant. Dapper.    What do you think of me, That I am a Chiause? Face.    What's that? Dapper.    The Turk was here— As one would say, do you think I am a Turk? B. Jonson, Alchemist, i. 2. Accompanied with a chaus of the court. Hakluyt. The chaoush is a person of great authority in certain things; he is a kind of living firman, before whom everyone makes way. R. Curzon, Monast. in the Levant, p. 9.
  2. A trick; a sham; an imposition. Johnson. [Rare.]
  3. An impostor; a cheat. This is the gentleman, and he's no chiaus. B. Jonson, Alchemist.

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Examples (50)

  • The Portugalls have choused—['cheated' D.W.]—us The word chouse appears to have been introduced into the language at the beginning of the seventeenth century. —  The Diary of Samuel Pepys, May/Jun 1663
  • I love both Edward and Jacob but if I had to chouse I would go with Edward in a heart beat. —  Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch
  • (Pakistani Army), Al-quida, Irani Revolutionary Guards who bleed Afghan Army, NATO / ISAF forces. (v) Mr. Bush, the President of United States, should issue blank chouse, provide ammunition and training to Frontier Constabulary (FC) to facilitate the killing of Afghans in Afghanistan and Balochs in Balochistan. —  IntelliBriefs
  • If we did not know, for example, the occasion which added the word chouse to the English language, we have little doubt that the twofold analogy of form and meaning would have led etymologists to the German kosen_, (with the very common softening of the k to ch_,) and that the derivation would have been perfectly satisfactory to most minds.--_Tantrums would look like a word of popular coinage, and yet we find a respectable Old High German verb tantarôn_, delirare, (Graff, V. —  The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860
  • The Portugalls have choused us The word chouse appears to have been introduced into the language at the beginning of the seventeenth century. —  Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete
 

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This word has been looked up 88 times.

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Also spelled chiaus, chaus (also chiaous, after F. chiaoux), representing Turkish chā'ush, chaush, an interpreter, messenger, etc., from Arabic khawās (later Hindustani khawās, an attendant, etc., literally grandees, nobles), properly plural of khās (s representing letter sād), noble. In senses 2, 3, and 4, the noun is from the verb.
  2. Formerly also chowse; from chouse, n.; literally, act like a chouse (in allusion to a Turkish interpreter or chouse who, in 1609, swindled some of the London merchants trading with Turkey out of a large sum of money).
 

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