verb. (old cant, and literary).—To cheat, beguile, deceive [O.E.D. … ‘Not in regular use before 1600…. ‘the usual sense in 17th and 18th centuries’]: spec. (B. E. and GROSE), ‘to throw dust in one’s eyes by diverting one,’ ‘to fling dust or snuff in the eyes of the person intended to be robbed; also to invent some plausible tale to delude shopkeepers and others, thereby to put them off their guard.’ Whence AMUSER = a cheat, a snuff-throwing thief; ‘one that deceives’ (ASH and GROSE).
1480. CAXTON, Ovid Metamorphoses, XII. iii. I never AMUSED my husbonde.
1569. CECIL [STRYPE, Annals of the Reformation, liv. 582]. He was secretly employed to AMUSE her.
1583. WHITGIFT [FULLER, The Church History of Britain, ix. 153]. I doubt not but your lordships will judge those AMUSERS to deserve just punishment.
1673. MARVELL, The Rehearsal Transposed, II. 263. And all to AMUSE men from observing.
1728. DEFOE, A System of Magic, I. vii. 190. Tools of the Devil to cheat and AMUSE the world.
1756. BURKE, Sublime and Beautiful [Works, i. 155]. AMUSE and mislead us by false lights.
1775. ASH, Dictionary, s.v. AMUSER … one that deceives.
1817. COBBETT, A Year’s Residence in the United States of America (1822), 230. It becomes the people of America to guard their minds against ever being, in any case, AMUSED with names.
