coign

• “The audience, of course, generally has the same preferred coign of vantage as the lucky servant or the Wily Peasant.”

  Fictionaut: Cinnamon Roll

• “Cf. ‘no jutty, frieze, buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.’”

  Quentin Durward

• “Forbearing to engage in the open field, where the gain would lie wholly with the enemy, he lay stoutly embattled on ground where the citizens must reap advantage; since, as he doggedly persisted, to march out meant to be surrounded on every side; whereas to stand at bay where every defile gave a coign of vantage, would give him mastery complete. 46”

  Agesilaus

• “Laconian territory, he came so close to the gates that their officers actually shut out their own Boeotian cavalry on the point of entering, in terror lest the Lacedaemonians might pour into the town in company, and these Boeotian troopers were forced to cling, like bats to a wall, under each coign of vantage beneath the battlements.”

  Hellenica

• “There were people, crowds of people, clearly visible at the office windows of the upper stories of the casino and cathedral looking out over the crowd: the casino itself might be closed, but either the rest of Billy Fairchild's empire was open for business, or he'd offered it up as a coign of vantage for those interested in seeing the concert but not mingling with the groundlings.”

  Music To My Sorrow

• “However, by the exertions of our marines — who should have been at them long ago — these sharp-shooters from the coign of vantage were now reduced to three brave fellows.”

  Springhaven

• “In Scotland Yard, sitting dozing on your benches, or talking soft nothings to the housemaids round the corner; for ye were not walking on your beats, nor standing at coign of vantage, to watch the tumults of the day.”

  Doctor Thorne

• “We passed out of the city by a gate where in a little coign of vantage a cobbler was thoughtfully hammering away in the tumult at”

  Familiar Spanish Travels

• “As we converged I saw the five leading Boers, better mounted than their comrades, outpacing the others in a desperate resolve to secure the coign of vantage.”

  Simon & Schuster: MY EARLY LIFE

• “And during the fortnight that followed he went about making believe to weigh this matter, to view it from every coign; for it did not suit him, even in secret, to confess to the vehemence with which, when he much desired a thing, his temperament knocked flat the hurdles of reason.”

  Australia Felix

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