​COTGRAVE, RANDLE (?–1634), English lexicographer, came of a Cheshire family, and was educated at Cambridge, entering St John’s College in 1587. He became secretary to Lord Burghley, and in 1611 published his French-English dictionary (2nd ed., 1632), a work of real historical importance in lexicography, and still valuable in spite of such errors as were due to contemporary want of exact scholarship.