Have a care of your entertainments: there is a
friend of mine come to town, tells me there is
three cozen-germans that has cozen’d all the
hosts of Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of
horses and money.
-Sir, Hugh Evans
The Merry Wives of Windsor Act IV, Scene v, Line 74
Cozen is in the modern dictionary and it means ‘to deceive, win over, or induce to do something by artful coaxing and wheedling or shrewd trickery’. That’s straight out of MW online. So, for you folks who like to claim that Shakespeare’s works are written in another language – well, they’re not.
To be clear, this is two different languages; Norse and English to be precise. Yes, I did try the reindeer, and no, I did not try the whale.
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