Obs. Forms: 6–7 cokes, coaks, coxe, 7 cox, coax. [Origin obscure: possibly related to cockenay, COCKNEY, and its cognates.] A silly fellow, fool, ninny; a simpleton, one easily ‘taken in.’
1567. Drant, Horace Epist., xvii. F ij. Aristippus … the sharpe Diogenes deryded in his kinde Thou art (qd. he) a common cokes.
1568. T. Howell, Newe Sonets (1879), 151. He is a cokes, and worthy strokes, whose wife the Breeches beare.
1575. J. Still, Gamm. Gurton, V. ii. He showeth himself herein … so very a coxe The cat was not so madly alured by the foxe.
1611. Cotgr., Guilmin, a noddie, ninnie, coxe, ideot.
1616. Beaum. & Fl., Wit at Sev. Weapons, III. i. Go, you’re a brainless cox [v.r. coax], a toy, a Fop.
1628. Ford, Lover’s Melanch., IV. ii. (1629), 63. A kinde of Cokes, which is as the learned terme, an Asse, a Puppy [etc.].
1636. Lyly, Euphues, E vj. I brought thee vp like a Cokes [ed. 1581 has cockney], and thou hast handled me like a Cockscombe.
c. 1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Cokes, the Fool in the Play, or Bartholomew-Fair.
Cokes, obs. form of COAX.
