Forms: 6–8 cokes, 7–8 coaks, (6 coxe, 7 coques), 8– coax. [f. COKES sb. According to Johnson 1755–73, ‘a low word,’ and probably in vulgar use long before it became usual in literature, which may account for want of literary evidence for the early history of the senses. The original meaning seems to have been ‘make a cokes of’: cf. to fool, to pet, to gull; and the transition from ‘make a fool of’ to ‘make a pet of,’ is paralleled by the passage of fond from ‘befooled’ to its present sense.]
† 1. trans. To make a ‘cokes’ of, befool, impose upon, ‘take in.’ Obs.
[Cf. 1616. B. Jonson, Devil is an Ass, II. i. (Speech 68). Why, we will make a Cokes of thee Wise Master, We will, my mistress, an absolute fine Cokes!]
c. 1679. Roxb. Ballads, VII. 9. We tell them ’tis not a penny we can take: We plead poverty before we have need, And thus we do coaks them most bravely indeed.
1806. Med. & Ph. Jrnl. (1807), 132. That practitioners would pay a little more attention to those authors who are out of fashion and laid upon the shelf, and not suffer themselves to be coaxed by an old practice in a modern garb.
† 2. To make a pet of; to pet, fondle, caress; to treat endearingly or with blandishment. Obs.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. viii. (Arb.), 36. Princes may giue a good Poet such conuenient countenaunce and also benefite as are due to an excellent artificer, though they neither kisse nor cokes them.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Dadée, Souffrir à vn enfant toutes ses dadées, to cocker or cokes it; to make a feddle or wanton of it.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev., iv. 76. Some I saw Caressing and Cokesing their Husbands; in the very moment they design’d to betray them.
1678. Mrs. Behn, Sir Patient Fancy, III. ii. 40. For my sake, Dear, Pardon him this one time. [Cokesing him.
1694. R. L’Estrange, Fables, ccxix. (1714), 238. The Nurse … had chang’d her Note; for she was then Muzzling and Cokesing of it.
1794. Southey, Botany-Bay Eclog., II. They kiss’d me, coax’d me, robb’d me, and betray’d me.
1831. Cat’s Tail, 25. Those tender attentions, that coaxing and coddling.
† b. To coax up: to cocker up, coddle up. Obs.
1586. A. Day, Eng. Secretary, II. (1625), 48. They soothe up your passions, and cokes up your humors.
1683. [see COAXING vbl. sb.].
3. To influence or persuade by caresses, flattery or blandishment. Johnson says ‘To wheedle, to flatter, to humor: a low word’; cf. quot. 1663.
1663. Flagellum; or O. Cromwell (1672), 159. And sometimes to cokes the neighbouring Rusticks, give them a Buck he had hunted.
1835. W. Irving, Tour Prairies, 248. ‘He try to coax me,’ said Beatte, ‘but I say no—we must part—I no keep such company.’
1875. McLaren, Serm., Ser. II. vii. 122. A wholesome obstinacy in the right that will neither be bribed nor coaxed nor bullied.
b. Const. to do a thing; into an action, etc.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), X. xlvi. Dragging the table … over an uneven floor, in hopes of coaxing it to stand on more than two legs.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Manch. Strike, x. 111. She coaxed her father into giving them a ball.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), VI. lii. 270. It was Seneca’s principle … to coax, rather than drive, his pupil into virtue.
1862. Union, 11 April, 230. I succeeded in coaxing Papa … to allow me to teach in the school.
c. With various other extensions, as to coax away, down, forth, up: to persuade or entice to go or come away, etc.; to coax (a thing) out of (a person): to get it out of him by coaxing.
1700. Astry, trans. Saavedra-Faxardo, II. 101. Women … coaks them out of their Husbands, and so tell ’em again to others; as it was in that secret which Maximus told his wife.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), I. 342. They coaxed away the beldame’s wrath.
1859. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., II. lxxxvii. 56. Are these men to be coaxed down by gingerbread?
1889. Amélie Rives, Quick or Dead? (Rtldg.), 20. An old spinet … from which Miss Fridiswig used to coax forth ghastly jinkings … on Sunday afternoons.
† 4. To persuade to believe (to be, etc.); to flatter or wheedle into the belief. Obs.
1676. Marvell, Mr. Smirke, Wks. 1875, IV. 69. So the Exposer would now cokes the lay multitude, whom before he call’d ‘the hundred thousands,’ and for their simplicity ‘excusable from subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles,’ to be grown on the suddain so very wise men, that [etc.].
5. intr. To employ coaxing.
1706. Farquhar, Recruiting Off., I. i. I coax! I wheedle! I’m above it.
1784. New Spectator, XII. 1/2. What with palming one fellow, kissing another, and coaxing with thousands, [she] has driven me almost horn-mad.
1878. Masque Poets, 52. The gentlest … plead and coax For the sad strange story of Jasper Oakes.
