Forms: 5 coytyn, 6 coyte, quayt-, 7 coit, quait, 7– quoit. [f. the sb.]
1. intr. To play at quoits. rare.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 86/1. Coytyn, petriludo.
1530. Palsgr., 488/2. Let us leave all boyes games, and go coyte a whyle.
1570. Levins, Manip., 216/18. To coyte, discum mittere.
1684. Dryden, Ovid’s Met., I. 599. To Quoit, to Run, and Steeds and Chariots drive.
2. trans. To throw like a quoit. Also with advbs. as away, down, off, out.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., II. iv. 206. Quoit him downe … like a shoue-groat shilling.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Brave Sea-fight, Wks. III. 39/2. So neere, as a man might quoit a Bisket Cake into her.
1660. Shirley, Andromana, I. v. 47. Tis more impossible for me to leave thee, Then for this carkase to quait away its grave-stone.
1681. Cotton, Poet. Wks. (1765), 326. If you coit a Stone.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, XXIII. 1042. Leonteus … quoited it next.
1822. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. Praise Chimneysweepers. One unfortunate wight … was quoited out of the presence with universal indignation.
1870. Thornbury, Tour Eng., I. iv. 77. It was just beyond … where Falstaff was quoited into the Thames.
