A Turkish or Middle Eastern official, messenger, or officer; sometimes used as a synonym for chouse in the sense of a trickster.
Directly from Turkish çauş, meaning a messenger or officer of the Ottoman court. English borrowed this term in the 16th-17th centuries during increased contact with Ottoman traders and diplomats.
The choush represents one of English's most interesting cultural borrowings—we took a real Ottoman job title and gradually warped it into meaning 'con artist,' showing how language reflects our cultural prejudices and trade suspicions!
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