Rum: [...] I know I'm only a bluff old cove with no legs and a beard you could lose a badger in, but if you'll take me, I'm willing to be captain of your ship, forever! What do you say?
BBC. Blackadder, season 2: Potato
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"[...] You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!"
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)
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"Funny sort of cove altogether. D'you know what I think?"
"What?"
"He's a wrong 'un!"
Agatha Christie. And Then There Were None. p.88 (1939)