chouse

verb

1. (obsolete, transitive)To cheat, to trick.

   “This is some conspiracy, I suppose, to bam, to chouse me out of my money”

   “I cannot think otherwise than that the undertaker of the aforecited poesy hath choused your Highness; for I have seen painted, I know not where, the identically same Dian, with full as many nymphs, as he calls them, and more dogs.”

   “They never like you half so well as when you bring your men with you: they don't want officers so much as men; and some of the commands, if they can chouse you out of your recruits, will not stop to do so; and then you may whistle for your commission.”

2. (US)To handle roughly, as by chasing or scaring.
3. (US, regional)To handle, to take care of.

   “This gave the roundup the appearance of a cavalry charge, and a stranger observing the procedure for the first time might have thought we were a bunch of green, possibly drunken cowboys making sport out of chousing cattle. But we weren't chousing them, we were just trying to keep them in sight, and for a very good reason.”

4. (US, regional, transitive)To cause undesirable activity in livestock, such as running.

   “[…] but the fact remains that my range cattle, because of the chousing which they received at the hands of the troops and the fright that they had, were caused to go into a period of considerable range deficiency without the flesh with which they should have entered this period.”

noun

1. (obsolete)One who is easily cheated; a gullible person.

   “He that with injury is griev'd, And goes to law to be reliev'd, Is sillier than a sottish chouse Who , when a thief has robb'd his house, Applies himself to cunning men, To help him to his goods agen”

2. (obsolete)A trick; a sham.
3. (obsolete)A swindler.

   “By this hand of flesh, Would it might never write good court-hand more, If I discover . What do you think of me, That I am a chouse?”