1894 Brewer’s / V / 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.)
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.