Sc. Also cuit, cute (köt). [A com. Low German word, found in Sc. since c. 1500: cf. MDu. cōte, cöte, Flem. keute, Du. koot fem., knuckle-bone; East Fris. kote, kôt ankle-joint, ankle; OFris. kâte joint, knuckle; MLG. kote, LG. kote, köte, also in mod.G. in sense ‘pastern-joint, fetlock’: see Grimm.]
1. The ankle-joint.
1508. Dunbar, in Flyting, 232. Ffor rerd of the, and rattling of thy butis … Sum claschis the, sum cloddis the on the cutis.
1681. Colvil, Whigs Supplic. (1751), 17. Some had hoggars, some straw boots, Some uncover’d legs and coots.
a. 1810. Tannahill, Poems (1846), 81. Whyles o’er the coots in holes he plumped.
1818. Blackw. Mag., III. 531. With feet, with cuits, unshod—but clean.
2. The fetlock of a horse.
1681. Colvil, Whigs Supplic. (1751), 81. Rub my horse-belly and his coots, And when I get them, dight my boots.
3. A thing of small value; a trifle.
Perhaps, orig. a knuckle-bone used by children in playing, as in MDu. cote ‘osselet du bout des piedz de bestes, de quoy jouent les enfants, astragalus, talus’ (Plantijn): see also Grimm, Köte 3.
1550. Lyndesay, Sqr. Meldrum, 294. Your crakkis I count thame not ane cute.
a. 1605. Montgomerie, Sonn., xlvi. (1886), I count ȝour cunning is not worth a cute. Ibid., Misc. Poems, xlvi. I count not of my lyf a cute.
1631. A. Craig, Pilgr. & Heremite, 10, in Poet. Wks. (1873), I.
| And since alyke for her loue I haue tane such payne, | |
| I care not a cuit for her sake to bee slayne. |
4. Comb., as coot-bone, ankle-bone, knuckle-bone, esp. as used to play with.
1648–60. Hexham, Dutch Dict., Pickelen, to Play at Coot-bone as boyes doe.
