Also 8 cossart. [Not found before the 16th c.: derivation uncertain.
Prof. Skeat (Trans. Philol. Soc., 1889) has suggested that it is the same word as OE. cot-sǽta cot-sitter, dweller in a cot, cottar; cf. the Domesday forms, pl. coscez, cozets, cozez (z = ts). This is phonetically satisfactory, and the sense of ‘lamb dwelling in a cot’ or ‘kept by a cot-sǽta or cottar’ finds support in It. casiccio a tame lamb bred by hand, f. casa house; Ger. hauslamm house-lamb and ‘pet,’ is analogous. Cf. also ‘Cotts. lambs brought up, by hand, cades,’ Marshall, Rural Econ. E. Norfolk, 1787 (whence in Grose 1790). There is however a long gap between the coscez of Domesday and the cosset of 1579, during which no trace of the word in either sense has been found.]
1. A lamb (colt, etc.) brought up by hand; a pet-lamb, cade-lamb. Also attrib. as cosset lamb.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Nov., 42. I shall thee give yond Cosset for thy payne.
1613. W. Browne, Sheph. Pipe, Wks. 1772, III. 39. The best cosset in my fold.
1626. Breton, Fantastickes, April (D.). The Cosset Lamb is learned to butt.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, 62. A Cosset lambe or colt, &c. i.e. a cade lamb, a lamb or colt brought up by the hand, Norf. Suff.
1749. W. Ellis, Shepherd’s Guide, 77. A cossart-lamb in Hertfordshire is one left by its dam’s dying by disease or hurt before it is capable of getting its own living; or is one that is taken from a ewe that brings two or three or four lambs at a yeaning, and is incapable of suckling and bringing them all up.
1883. Sat. Rev., LVI. 109. The character of cosset lambs is notoriously bad; and … the pet horse is, as a rule, a somewhat uncertain animal in stable.
2. Applied to persons, etc.: A pet of any kind; a petted, spoilt child.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, 143. Who but an ingrain cosset would keepe such a courting of a Curtezan.
1614. B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, I. i. I am for the cosset his charge.
1659. Gauden, Tears of Ch., 595. Some are such Cossets and Tantanies that they congratulate their Oppressors and flatter their Destroyers.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Cosset, a Fondling Child.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Cosset, a pet, something fondly caressed.
