Note 144 — Chapter XIII
Reading edition
A very difficult word. Before it was applied to a Londoner it meant a milksop. It is thus used by Chaucer. Cooper renders delicias facere, "to play the wanton, to dally, to play the cockney." In this sense it corresponds to Fr. acoquiné, made into a coquin, "made tame, inward, familiar; also, growne as lazy, sloathful, idle, as a beggar" (Cotgrave).