Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A secret agreement; secret fraud; collusion.
  • noun Specifically In law, a collusive agreement between two or more to prejudice a third person; deceitful contrivance.
  • noun Same as covent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Law) A collusive agreement between two or more persons to prejudice a third.
  • noun obsolete Deceit; fraud; artifice.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete, law fraud, deception

Etymologies

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Examples

  • These were the real Dark Ages, when intimations were frequently made from the Glendevon and other pulpits that the minister and session would be glad to receive information against suspected witches, and when the common pricker who pricked poor witches "with lang preins of thrie inches" to discover the marks of Satan, was specially busy in the vale of Devon, where in a record year no less than sixteen of the local "covin" were burned.

    Chronicles of Strathearn John Hunter 1883

  • Surely not; I naturally assumed – in keeping with the tawdry corporate sponsorship covin – that it was on consignment from ACoC.

    Anglican Church of Canada is hawking the silverware « Anglican Samizdat 2010

  • The shearmen who cut the nap of woolen cloth were “wont to go to all the vadletts within the City of the same trade, and then, by covin and conspiracy between them made, they would order that no one among them should work, or serve his own master, until the said master and his servant, or vadlett, had come to an agreement.”

    The Nature of Technology W. Brain Arthur 2009

  • Agesilaus took a counter oath: without fraud or covin to observe the armistice during the three months7 necessary to that transaction.

    Agesilaus 2007

  • Catheringnettes, Lizzy and Lissy Mycock, from Street Flesh-shambles, were they moon at aube with hespermun and I their covin guardient, I would not know to contact such gretched youngsteys in my ways from Haddem or any suistersees or heiresses of theirn, claiming by, through, or under them.

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • AUGH!! oh well. i was just a little late to tutoring, but not too bad. covin left early cause he had no sleep.

    quirkykid Diary Entry quirkykid 2004

  • And when they espied the duke's daughter, that was a full fair woman, then by their false covin they made debate betwixt themself, and the duke of his goodness would have departed them, and there they slew him and his eldest son.

    Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) Thomas Malory Jean Froissart

  • The document was a release, given by Mrs. Stiles to the railway company, -- a printed form, with blanks to be filled in as the individual case should demand; a devilish engine of cozen and covin, constructed in cold blood by the railway company, and supplied to them

    Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 Various

  • And when they espied the duke’s daughter, that was a full fair woman, then by their false covin they made debate betwixt themself, and the duke of his goodness would have departed them, and there they slew him and his eldest son.

    Chapter XV. The Thirteenth Book. How Sir Galahad Fought with the Knights of the Castle, and Destroyed the Wicked Custom 1909

  • And Agesilaus took a counter oath: without fraud or covin to observe the armistice during the three months (7) necessary to that transaction.

    Agesilaus 431 BC-350? BC Xenophon 1874

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