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cop

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: Appendix:Variations of "cop" and чоп

Translingual

Etymology

Clipping of English Coptic.

Symbol

cop

  1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Coptic.

See also

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Uncertain. Perhaps from Middle English *coppen, *copen, from Old English copian (“to plunder; pillage; steal”); or possibly from Middle French caper (“to capture”), from Latin capiō (“to seize, grasp”); or possibly from Dutch kapen (“to seize, hijack”), from Old Frisian kāpia (“to buy”), whence West Frisian keapje, Saterland Frisian koopje, North Frisian koopi, kuupe. Compare also Middle English copen (“to buy”), from Middle Dutch copen.

Verb

cop (third-person singular simple present cops, present participle copping, simple past and past participle copped)

  1. (transitive, informal, dated) to capture or arrest someone
  2. (transitive, originally New York dialectal, informal, African-American Vernacular) To obtain, to purchase (items including but not limited to drugs), to get hold of, to take.
    • 1984, Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, →ISBN, page 4:
      You see yourself as the kind of guy who wakes up early on Sunday morning and steps out to cop the Times and croissants.
    • 1995, Norman L. Russell, Doug Grad, Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story, page 191:
      He sold me a bulging paper sack full of Cambodian Red for two dolla' MPC. A strange experience, copping from a kid, but it was righteous weed.
    • 2005, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home, Simon & Schuster, page 10:
      Heroin appeared on the streets of our town for the first time, and Innie watched helplessly as his sixteen-year-old brother began taking the train to Harlem to cop smack.
    • 2020, Internet Money, Gunna, Don Toliver, “Lemonade”, in B4 The Storm ft. NAV:
      Off the juice, codeine got me trippin' copped the coupe, woke up, roof is missin'...
    • 2021, Polo G, “RAPSTAR”, in Einer Bankz : Synco (music), Hall of Fame:
      Uh, copped a BMW, new deposit, I picked up another bag Like fuck it, I'ma count while I'm in it...
    • 2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane, spoken by Nathan (Simon Manyonda):
      Oh, come on. Help a brother out. People see you coppin', might inspire them. Look, I know you ain't payin' bills right now. Man must have bare peas saved up.
  3. (transitive) To (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing.
    When caught, he would often cop a vicious blow from his father.
    • 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 34:
      I take no shame to fight the lame / When they deserve to cop it.
    • 1992, “Straight Razor”, in Roxanne Shanté (lyrics), The Bitch Is Back:
      You bust in the house, another bitch’s mouth is suckin on your man's dick
      What do you do: think straight? Or do you run to the back,
      Open the trunk to the nickel-plate 38?
      “Wait wait, baby, please!”
      That's the shit he's coppin when he’s down on both his knees
    • 2009, Lee Headington, Relentless, page 5:
      I now understand that my dad didn't really have much of a father-son relationship and may have found my behaviour hard to deal with. Maybe that is why I copped a beating.
  4. (transitive, trainspotting, slang) To see and record a railway locomotive for the first time.
  5. (transitive) To steal.
  6. (transitive) To adopt.
    No need to cop a 'tude with me, junior.
  7. (intransitive, usually with “to”, slang) To admit, especially to a crime or wrongdoing.
    I already copped to the murder. What else do you want from me?
    Harold copped to being known as "Dirty Harry".
    • 2005, Elmore Leonard, Mr. Paradise, page 295:
      He shot a guy in a bar on Martin Luther King Day and copped to first-degree manslaughter
  8. (transitive, slang, of a pimp) To recruit a prostitute into the stable.
    • 1967, Iceberg Slim, Pimp, published 2009, page 90:
      I said, 'Tell your tricks to call you here.'
      She laid the bearskin and freaked the joint off with her lights and other crap. Except for the fake stars it was a fair mock-up of her pad where I had copped her.
    • 2011, Shaheem Hargrove, Sharice Cuthrell, The Rise and Fall of a Ghetto Celebrity, page 55:
      The code was to call a pimp and tell him you have his hoe plus turn over her night trap but that was bull because the HOE was out of his stable months before I copped her.
  9. (slang, transitive) To take (a look, glance, etc.).
    Cop an eyeful of this!
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

Short for copper (“police officer”), itself from the verb cop (“to lay hold of”) above, in reference to arresting criminals.

Noun

cop (plural cops)

  1. (informal) A police officer or prison guard.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:police officer
Usage notes
  • Originally a slang term, but now in general use, including by journalists and police. Terms like police officer are generally considered more respectful.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English coppe, from Old English *coppe, as in ātorcoppe (“spider”, literally “venom head”), from Old English copp (“top, summit, head”), from Proto-West Germanic *kopp, from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, round vessel, head”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to bend, curve”). Cognate with Middle Dutch koppe, kobbe (“spider”). More at cobweb.

Noun

cop (plural cops)

  2. (obsolete) A spider.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)
Derived terms

Etymology 4

From Middle English cop, coppe, from Old English cop, copp, from Proto-West Germanic *kopp, from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, basin, round object”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew-. Cognate with Dutch kop, German Kopf.

Noun

cop (plural cops)

  1. (crafts) The ball of thread wound on to the spindle in a spinning machine.
  2. (obsolete) The top, summit, especially of a hill.
  3. A roughly dome-shaped piece of armor, especially one covering the shoulder, the elbow, or the knee.
    • 2004, Kevin Grace, Tom White, Cincinnati Cemeteries: The Queen City Underground, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 142:
      […] the elbow cop or coudiere for the elbow; and the rerebrace or arriere-bras for the upper arm. The shoulder cop, pauldron or epauliere which covered the shoulder, and often a large part of the breast and back, was usually considered a part of the arm guard.
    • 2013, K. J. Parker, The Proof House, Orbit, →ISBN:
      In the middle was a pile of armour – breastplates, helmets, vambraces, gorgets, pauldrons, cops, cuisses, sabatons, gauntlets, all mangled and ruined, ...
    • 2013, George Cameron Stone, A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: in All Countries and in All Times, Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 364:
      Tilting Cuisses 457. In the 15th century the knee cops were merged in the plate cuisses. In the East, except in Japan, knee cops as separate pieces of armor were seldom used east of Turkey.
  4. A tube or quill upon which silk is wound.
  6. (architecture, military) A merlon.
Derived terms

References

See also

  • check cop (probably etymologically unrelated to above terms)
  • not much cop (probably etymologically unrelated to above terms)

Anagrams

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A-Pucikwar

Etymology

From Proto-Great Andamanese *cup.

Noun

cop

  1. basket

References

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Chinese

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French

Middle English

Occitan

Old English

Old French

Polish

Scottish Gaelic

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