Heading
1830. Bulwer Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 2, ed. 1854. I tells you, I vent first to Mother Bussblour's, who, I knows, chops the whiners morning and evening to the young ladies, and I axes there for a Bible, and she says, says she, 'I 'as only a Companion to the Halter! but you'll get a Bible, I think at Master Talkins the cobbler as preaches.'
1857. Punch, 31 Jan. For them coves in Guildhall and that blessed Lord Mayor, Prigs on their four bones should chop whiners I swear.
Chortle, verb (popular).—To
chuckle; to laugh in one's sleeve;
to 'snort.' [Introduced by
Lewis Carrol in Through the Looking
Glass.—See quot.]
1872. Lewis Carrol, Through Looking Glass, i. 'O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy.
1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, xxxii., 242. It makes the cynic and the worldly-minded man to chuckle and chortle with an open joy.
1887. Athenæum, 3 Dec., p. 751, col. 1. A means of exciting cynical chortling.
1888. Daily News, 10 Jan., p. 5, col. 2. So may chortle the Anthropophagi. [m.]
Chosen Twelve.—See Apostles.
Chouse, subs. (colloquial).—1. A
trick; swindle; sham; or 'sell'
(q.v.). [From chouse, a cheat,
trickster, or swindler, through
the verb. The derivation is thus
discussed and weighed by Dr.
Murray: 'As to the origin of
the Eng. use, Gifford (1814), in
a note on the quot. from Ben
Jonson, says, 'In 1609, Sir
Robt. Shirley sent a messenger
or chiaus to this country, as his
agent from the Grand Signior
and the Sophy to transact some
preparatory business.' The latter
'chiaused the Turkish and
Persian merchants of £4,000,'
and decamped. But no trace of
this incident has yet been found
outside of Gifford's note; it was
unknown to Peter Whalley, a
previous editor of Ben Jonson,
1756; also to Skinner, Henshaw,
Dr. Johnson, Todd, and others
who discussed the history of the
word. Yet most of these recognised
the likeness of chouse
to the Turkish word, which
Henshaw even proposed as the
etymon on the ground that the
Turkish chiaus 'is little better
than a fool.' Gifford's note
must therefore be taken with reserve.']
The word is also used
at Eton in this sense, but see
sense 2, which is the commoner.
Variously spelt chiaus, chews,
showse, ghowse, and chouse.
1610. Ben Jonson, Alchymist, I., ii., 25. 'D. What do you think of me? That I am a chiause? Face. What's that? D. The Turk [who] was here. As one would say, doe you think I am a Turke?'
1639. Ford, Lady's Trial, II., i. Gulls, or Moguls, Tag, rag, or other, hogen-mogen, vanden, Skip-jacks, or chouses.
1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, I., i., wks. (1713), 343. You are no better than a chouse, a cheat.
1673. Wycherley, Gent. Danc. Master, III., in wks. (1713), 295. He a dancing-master, he's a chouse, a cheat, a meer cheat.
1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2 ed.).
2. (Eton College).—A shame; an imposition.
1864. Athenæum. When an Eton boy says that anything is 'a beastly chouse,' he means that it is a great shame; and when an Eton peripatetic tradesman is playful enough to call his customer 'a little chouser,' he means that a leaf has been taken out of his own book by one on whom he has practised.
1883. Brinsley Richards, Seven Years at Eton. The boy . . . was told that what he had done was an awful chouse.
