Brewer's: Villoner

(French.) To cheat. Villon was a poet in the reign of Louis XI., but more famous for his cheats and villainies than for his verses. Hence the word villoner, “to cheat, to play a rogue's trick.” (Rabelais: Pantagruel, iv. 17; note by Molleux.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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