1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. cotquean

Find the word definition

What is "cotquean"

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cotquean

Cotquean \Cot"quean`\ (k?t"kw?n`), n. [Cot a cottage + quean.]

  1. A man who busies himself with affairs which properly belong to women.
    --Addison.

  2. A she-cuckold; a cucquean; a henhussy. [Obs.]

    What, shall a husband be afraid of his wife's face? We are a king, cotquean, and we will reign in our pleasures.
    --B. Jonson.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
cotquean

1540s, obsolete, "housewife of a cot," from cot (see cottage) + quean; hence "a vulgar beldam, scold" [OED]; also used contemptuously (by Shakespeare, etc.) of men seen as overly interested in housework.

Wiktionary
cotquean

n. (alternative form of cot-quean English)

Usage examples of "cotquean".

In the first place they were wholly incompatible: the Vizier despised Omar Pasha as an illiterate brute and the Dey despised the Vizier as a cotquean, in spite of his numerous harem, his collection of guns and his status as an important shareholder in the larger associations of corsairs.