colloq. Forms: 7 chiause, chiauze, chews, 7– chowse, chouse. [f. CHOUSE sb.] trans. To dupe, cheat, trick; to swindle or defraud of or out of.
a. 1659. Shirley, Honoria & Mammon, II. iii. We are in a fair way to be ridiculous … Chiaus’d by a scholar!
1654. Gayton, Festiv. Notes, IV. xviii. 261. But our Barber … is chiauz’d, a very Pigeon … and is caughd like a young Jack Daw.
1662. Dryden, Wild Gallant, II. i. You shall chouse him of Horses, Cloaths, and Mony.
1664. Butler, Hud., II. III. 203/1010. He stole your Cloke, and pick’d your pocket, Chews’d, and Caldes’d ye like a Block-head.
1708. Mrs. Centlivre, Busie Body, III. (1723), 94. To chouse a very civil … gentleman out of an hundred Pound.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, II. iii. (1783), 188. Bristol stones won’t buy stock; [he] only wants to chouse you.
1826. Scott, Woodst., vii. Not to be … choused out of my lump of loyalty.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, cliii. Had Fortune pleased posterity to chowse.
1886. Law Rep. 33 Ch. Div., 496. Is it to be said that they are to be choused of their remedy?
Hence Choused ppl. a., Chousing vbl. sb.
1682. D’Urfey, Butler’s Ghost, 104. Yet [he] gave worse Reasons for so doing, Than e’re chous’d Cully did for wooing.
1881. Duffield, Don Quix., II. 562. Mingled with evil, fraud, and chousing.
