† cousinage Obs.
(ˈkʌz(ə)nɪdʒ)
Forms: 4 cusynage, 4–5 cosynage, 4–8 (9) cosin-, 6 cosen-, cousen-, -yn-, (coossin-, cozinn-), 7 cousinage, cozenage.
[a. F. cousinage (13th c.): see -age.]
1. The condition of being ‘cousins’; kinship, consanguinity.
| 1375 Barbour Bruce v. 135 A lady..That wes till him in neir degre Of cosynage. c 1400 Apol. Loll. 79 If þat a man wed in to wif..a cosyn of his..after þis cosynage is knowen to him. c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 36 Be wel ware of feyned cosynage. 1571 Campion Hist. Irel. ii. vii. (1633) 98 Clayming cousinage to diverse noble houses. 1579 Fulke Heskins' Parl. 12 By which mariages cousenage might easily..growe betweene the two tribes. |
b. Law. writ of cosinage: see quots. (Cf. aiel, besaiel.)
| 1540 Act 32 Hen. VIII, c. 2 §2 Any Assise of Mort auncestor, Cossnage, Alye. 1598 Kitchin Courts Leet (1675) 424 Where he had view before in a Writ of Cozenage. 1628 Coke On Litt. 157 a, If there be a Challenge for Cosinage, he that taketh the Challenge must shew how the Juror is Cousin. 1641 Termes de la Ley 90 b, Cosinage..lyeth where my great Grandfather, my Grand-fathers Grandfather, or other Cosin dyeth seised in fee-simple, and a stranger abateth, viz. entreth into the lands, then I shall have against him this writ. 1865 Nichols Britton II. 61 Nor can the grandson..proceed by writ of Cosinage in the lifetime of the daughter. |
c. transf. and fig.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xiii. xxix. (Tollem. MS.), Betwene fische and water is nyȝnesse of cosinage. c 1450 Myrc 168 The cosynage of folowynge [= Baptism] teche. 1557 N.T. (Genev.) Luke viii. 21 note, The spiritual cousinage is to be preferred to the carnal and natural. 1565 Jewel Repl. Harding (1611) 133 The Punicall tongue, acknowledging a likenesse and cosenage, as it were to be betweene that and the Hebrew tongue. |
2. concr. Kinsfolk collectively; family, kindred.
| a 1340 Hampole Psalter lxxiii. 9 [lxxiv. 8] Þe cosynage of þa seyde in þaire hert..þe cusynage of þa is þe felaghship of all dampnabil men. 1382 Wyclif Gen. xii. 3 Alle cosynages of the erthe. c 1470 Harding Chron. Proem viii, Geue them in possessyon amonge the cosynage. a 1577 Sir T. Smith Commw. Eng. i. xii. (1609) 16 Care to maintaine still this their cousinage and common family. |