cony-catching

alternative coney-catching · alternative conicatching · alternative conny-catching · alternative cunny-catching

1. obsoleteslanguncountableElizabethanDeception, trickery.First known use 16th–17th c.

   Come, you are so full of conicatching.

   c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]

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   I doe beware and keepe my selfe from such treasons, and cunny-catching in mine owne bosome, not by an unquiet, and tumultuary curiosity, but rather by a diversion and resolution.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter VIII, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC