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coax

Pronunciation: /kəʊks/

The English word “coax” has 4 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To fondle, kid, pet, tease.
  2. To wheedle or persuade (a person, organisation, animal etc.) gradually or by use of flattery to do something.
  3. To carefully manipulate (someone or something) into a particular desired state, situation or position.

noun

  1. A simpleton; a dupe.

Etymology

Originally (1586) in the slang phrase to make a coax of, from earlier noun coax, cox, cokes "fool, simpleton", itself of obscure origin, perhaps related to cock (“male bird, pert boy”). The modern spelling is from 1706.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.