† cotquean Obs.
(ˈkɒtkwiːn)
Also 6 cote- cott-, 6–8 cot-.
[f. cot + quean ‘woman’, esp. as a depreciatory term. The first element is apparently cot n.1, cote n.1 in the sense ‘mean house, hut’: the original meaning being thus ‘housewife of a labourer's cot’. Thence the transition is easy on the one side to ‘one who has the manners of a labourer's wife, rude ill-mannered woman, vulgar bedlam, scold’ (cf. huzzy, hussy, from housewife), and on the other to a ‘man who acts the housewife’.]
1. (app.) The housewife of a cot or labourer's hut. to play the cotquean: said of a man: see sense 3.
| 1547 Salesbury Welsh Dict., Kotchwen, Cotequeane. 1589 Nashe Almond for Parrat 5 The Vicar of little Down, in Norfolke..groaping his owne hennes, like a Cotquean. 1624 Heywood Gunaik. iv. 180 Aristotle holds it as inconvenient and uncomely for the wife to busie herselfe about any publike affaires, as for the man to play the cotqueane at home. |
2. opprobriously. A woman to whom the manners of such a housewife are attributed; a coarse, vulgar, scolding woman, a low beldam.
(Cf. such expressions as ‘to scold like a market-woman’, ‘a fish-wife’, ‘a tinker's wife’, etc.)
| 1592 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. 146 Why thou..Cot⁓queane and scrattop of scolds wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead Carcass. 1601 B. Jonson Poetaster iv. iii, [Jupiter to Juno] We are a king, cotquean..we will cudgel thee to death, if thou find fault with us. 1608 T. James Apol. Wyclif 67 Railing and scolding more meretricum worse then Cot-queanes. 1633 Ford 'Tis Pity i. ii, Scold like a cot-quean; that's your profession. |
3. contemptuously. A man that acts the housewife, that busies himself unduly or meddles with matters belonging to the housewife's province. Cf. similar use of old wife, old woman, etc.
| 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. iv. iv. 9 Cap. Looke to the bakte meates, good Angelica, Spare not for cost. Nur. Go you Cot-queane, go, Get you to bed. 1611 Dekker Roaring Girle Wks. 1873 III. 177, I cannot abide these aperne husbands; such cotqueanes. c 1640 J. Smyth Lives Berkeleys (1883) II. 372 They fell upon him with opprobrious words, of Coward, Cotquene, Milksopp. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 482 ¶4. a 1719 Addison (J.), A stateswoman is as ridiculous a creature as a cotquean; each of the sexes should keep within its bounds. 1772 Weekly Mag. 4 June 295/1 They brand a man with the name of a cot-quean. 1825 Hogg in Blackw. Mag. XVII. 113 If thou'rt a Cotquean by my soul, I'll split thy pruriginious nowl. |
Hence ˈcotqueaned ppl. a., ? made a (male) cotquean. cotˈqueanity (nonce-wd.), character or quality of a (female) cotquean. cotquean-like a.
| 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 258 b, This unbrydeled and cottquenelike maner of scolding and lavishnes of toung. Ibid. 454 Cotqueanelyke rayling Rascallyke raging. 1601 B. Jonson Poetaster iv. iii, We tell thee thou angerest us, cotquean; and we will thunder thee in pieces for thy cotqueanity. 1704 D'Urfey Hell beyond Hell Tales 79 Like a cotquean'd fool, whose life Is bless'd, if he can please his wife. |