Chapter Coroner to Coterie' of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Cosset A house pet. Applied to a pet lamb brought up in the house; any pet. (Anglo-Saxon, cot-seat, cottage-dweller; German, kossat.)

Costard A clown in Love's Labour's Lost (Shakespeare), who apes the court wit of Queen Elizabeth's time, but misapplies and miscalls like Mrs. Malaprop or Master Dogberry.

Costard A large apple, and, metaphorically, a man's head. (See Costermonger .)

“Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword.”- Shakespeare: Richard III., i. 4.

Costermonger A seller of eatables about the streets, properly an appleseller (from costard, a sort of apple, and monger, “a trader;” Saxon, mangian, “to trade”), a word still retained in iron-monger, cheese-monger, fish-monger, news-monger, fell-monger, etc.

“Her father was an Irish costarmonger.”
B. Jonson: The Alchemist, iv. 1.

Cote-hardi A tight-fitting tunic buttoned down the front.

“He was clothed in a cote-hardi upon the gyse of Almayne [Germany].”- Geoffroi de la Tour: Landry.

Cotereaux (French). Cut-throats. The King of England, irritated at the rising in Brittany in the twelfth century, sent the Brabancons (q.v.) to ravage the lands of Raoul de Fourgères. These cut-throats carried knives (couteaux) with them, whence their name.

Coterie' (3 syl.). A French word, originally tantamount to our “guild,” a society where each paid his quota- i.e. his quote-part or gild (share). The French word has departed from its original meaning, and is now applied to an exclusive set, more especially of ladies.

“All coteries ... it seems to me, have a tendency to change truth into affectation.”- E. C. Gaskell; Charlotte Brontë (vol. ii. chap. xi. p 47).