▪ I. † cokes 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 Mel. iv. ii, A kind of Cokes, which is, as the learned term it, an ass, 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. |
▪ II. cokes
obs. form of coax.