chouse

present singular third person chouses · participle present chousing · participle past choused · past choused · alternative obsolete chiaus

1. obsoletetransitiveTo cheat, to trick.

   This is some conspiracy, I suppose, to bam, to chouse me out of my money

   1774, Samuel Foote, The Cozeners

   2 more examples

   I cannot think otherwise than that the undertaker of the aforecited poesy hath choused your Highness; for I have seen painted, I know not where, the identically same Dian, with full as many nymphs, as he calls them, and more dogs.

   c. 1824-1829, Walter Savage Landor, “Imaginary Conversations”, in J. Forster, editor, The Works of Walter Savage Landor, volume 1, published 1853, page 29

   They never like you half so well as when you bring your men with you: they don't want officers so much as men; and some of the commands, if they can chouse you out of your recruits, will not stop to do so; and then you may whistle for your commission.

   1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter IV, page 46

   Synonyms: cheat, trick

plural chouses · alternative obsolete chiaus

1. obsoleteOne who is easily cheated; a gullible person.

   He that with injury is griev'd, And goes to law to be reliev'd, Is sillier than a sottish chouse Who , when a thief has robb'd his house, Applies himself to cunning men, To help him to his goods agen

   1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC

2. obsoleteA trick; a sham.
3. obsoleteA swindler.

   By this hand of flesh, Would it might never write good court-hand more, If I discover . What do you think of me, That I am a chouse?

   1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, (please specify the Internet Archive page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

present singular third person chouses · participle present chousing · participle past choused · past choused · alternative chowse

1. USTo handle roughly, as by chasing or scaring.
2. USregionalTo handle, to take care of.

   1 more example

   This gave the roundup the appearance of a cavalry charge, and a stranger observing the procedure for the first time might have thought we were a bunch of green, possibly drunken cowboys making sport out of chousing cattle. But we weren't chousing them, we were just trying to keep them in sight, and for a very good reason.

   1980, John R. Erickson, Panhandle Cowboy, page 79

3. USregionaltransitiveTo cause undesirable activity in livestock, such as running.First known use late 19th c.

   […] but the fact remains that my range cattle, because of the chousing which they received at the hands of the troops and the fright that they had, were caused to go into a period of considerable range deficiency without the flesh with which they should have entered this period.

   1940 April 9, John Owen, “[letter to] Paul J. Kilday”, in [Relief of] John Owen, quoted in United States congressional serial set, 76th Congress, 3rd session (January 3, 1940—January 3, 1941), miscellaneous volume 3, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, published 1940-05-24, →ISSN, 76th Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Claims, report number 2293, page 12 of report