coaxyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[coax 词源字典]
coax: [16] In the 16th and 17th century a cokes was a ‘simpleton, someone easily duped’ (it is not known where the word came from, although it might perhaps be related to cockney). To cokes someone was thus to ‘make a cokes of them, fool them’. This spelling survived until the 18th century, when it was supplanted by coax. The word’s meaning, meanwhile, had passed via ‘treat as a simpleton or pet’ and ‘fondle’ to ‘wheedle’.
[coax etymology, coax origin, 英语词源]
coax (v.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1580s, originally in slang phrase to make a coax of, from earlier noun coax, cox, cokes "a fool, ninny, simpleton" (1560s); modern spelling is 1706. Origin obscure, perhaps related to cock (n.1). Related: Coaxed; coaxing.