Word.ws English Dictionary

coosen

coosen is the obsolete form of cozen.

Meaning of cozen

Verb (1)

cozen (third-person singular simple present cozens, present participle cozening, simple past and past participle cozened)

  1. (intransitive) To become cozy; (by extension) to become acquainted, comfortable, or familiar with.
    • "As I see it, Master Fraser, a 'bairn' ought to be verra concerned when a mon thrice her age cozens up to her."2008, Hannah Howell, Silver Flame, page 354

Verb (2)

cozen (third-person singular simple present cozens, present participle cozening, simple past and past participle cozened)

  1. (archaic) To cheat; to defraud; to deceive, usually by small arts, or in a pitiful way.
    • […] good Vulcan, for Cupids sake that hath cousned us all: befriend us as thou maiest […]c. 1590 (date written), G[eorge] P[eele], The Old Wiues Tale. […], London: […] Iohn Danter, for Raph Hancocke, and Iohn Hardie, […], published 1595, →OCLC

See all 3 meanings of cozen

Forms of coosen

third-person singular presentcoosens
present participlecoosening
past participlecoosened
pastcoosened

Questions about coosen

What is coosen the obsolete form of?
Coosen is the obsolete form of cozen.

Words near coosen in the dictionary

  1. Coosa County
  2. Coosan
  3. Coosawattee
  4. coose
  5. coosed
  6. coosen
  7. coosened
  8. coosening
  9. coosens
  10. cooses
  11. coosin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coosen (page history and authors); cozen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “coosen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coosen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.