chiaus

See also: Chiaus

English

Alternative forms

• chaoosh, chaoux, chaus, chawush, chiaous, chiause, chiaush, chiauss, chiaux, chiaoux, choush, tchaouch, tchaous (obsolete)

Etymology

c. 1600 from Ottoman Turkish چاوش (çavuş, “messenger, herald, licitor, sergeant”). Cognate with Turkish çavuş, Old Turkic 𐰲𐰉𐰾 (čabïš, “army commander”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: chous, choush, IPA^(key): /tʃaʊs/, /tʃaʊʃ/
• Hyphenation: chiaus

Noun

chiaus (plural chiauses)

1. (historical) An Ottoman Empire court official; an attendent, messenger, herald, interpreter.
2. (historical) An Ottoman Empire çavuş (“sergeant”).
3. Obsolete spelling of chouse (“a swindler”).

Verb

1. Obsolete spelling of chouse (“cheat, trick, swindle”).
   • 1893, Mynors Bright, Henry Benjamin Wheatley, editors, The diary of Samuel Pepys, for the first time fully transcribed from the shorthand manuscript in the Pepysian library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, volume 5, New York: G. E. Groscup, →OCLC, pages 117–118, note 2:

     The word chouse appears to have been introduced into the language at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1609, a Chiaus sent by Sir Robert Shirley, from Constantinople to London, had chiaused (or choused) the Turkish and Persian merchants out of ₤4,000, before the arrival of his employer, and had decamped. The affair was quite recent in 1610, when Jonson's "Alchemist" appeared, in which it is thus alluded to: […]

References

• “chiaus”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “chiaus, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “chiaus”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “chouse”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.