How do you say cousin in Elizabethan English?

Answer 1

Cousin. The word appears hundreds of times in Shakespeare, and usually means exactly what it means to you and me, like when Juliet calls Tybalt her cousin, or Rosalind and Celia call each other cousins. Rosalind and Celia's fathers are brothers; Juliet's mother is Tybalt's father's sister.

Sometimes the word is used more loosely to mean a close relative, like when Claudius says "And now our cousin Hamlet, and our son."

Sometimes close cousins or relatives will use the nickname "Coz". But this is like the word "Bro"; it is short for brother, but you can't say that the English word for brother is "Bro". Likewise, "Coz" is not a word for cousin.

There is also the word "cozen" which means to cheat. But that is another story.