Wiktionary

cop

See also: COP, còp, côp, cöp, cọp, çöp, čop, and чоп

Translingual

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Symbol

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cop

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

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English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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 Saterland Frisian koopje, North Frisian koope. Compare also Middle English copen (“to buy”), from Middle Dutch copen.

Verb

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

  1. (transitive, originally New York dialectal, informal) 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 (lyrics and music), “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 (lyrics and music), “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.
  2. (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.
  3. (transitive, trainspotting, slang) To see and record a railway locomotive for the first time.
  4. (transitive) To steal.
  5. (transitive) To adopt.
    No need to cop a 'tude with me, junior.
  6. (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
  7. (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.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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

Noun

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cop (plural cops)

  1. (informal) A police officer or prison guard.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:police officer
Usage notes
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  • 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
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Translations
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Etymology 3

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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

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cop (plural cops)

  2. (obsolete) A spider.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)
Derived terms
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Etymology 4

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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

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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. (Can we verify(+) this sense?) (obsolete) The crown (of the head); also the head itself. [14th–15th c.]
    The stature is bowed down in age, the cop is depressed.
  4. 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.
  5. A tube or quill upon which silk is wound.
  7. (architecture, military) A merlon.
Derived terms
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References

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See also

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

Anagrams

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A-Pucikwar

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Etymology

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From Proto-Great Andamanese *cup.

Noun

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cop

  1. basket

References

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Catalan

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Etymology 1

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Inherited from Old Catalan colp, from Late Latin colpus (“stroke”), from earlier Latin colaphus.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m (plural cops)

  1. hit, blow, strike
  2. time, occasion
    Synonyms: vegada, volta
Alternative forms
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Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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Per GDLC, possibly from Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, lap; fabric fold; pocket”), with influence from copa (“cup”). First attested in 1324.[1] In some senses (e.g. "snowflake"), influenced by Spanish copo (“flake”).

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m (plural cops)

  1. (archaic) large cup; bowl
  2. (historical) former dry measure (compare English cup)
  3. snowflake
  4. heart of a cabbage
  5. upper part of a tree trunk (where the branches grow from)
  6. (fishing) catch bag (bag for holding caught fish, attached to a net)
  7. (weaving) skein

References

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  1. ^ “cop”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024

Further reading

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Chinese

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Alternative forms

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  • (eye dialect) cup

Etymology

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From clipping of English copy.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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cop

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to copy; to plagiarise
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Czech

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Etymology

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Borrowed from German Zopf.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m inan

  1. braid

Declension

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Declension of cop (hard masculine inanimate)
singular plural
nominative cop copy
genitive copu copů
dative copu copům
accusative cop copy
vocative cope copy
locative copu copech
instrumental copem copy

Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • “cop”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
  • “cop”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

French

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Etymology

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m (plural cops)

  1. (informal) a friend, a pal
  2. (North America, informal) cop (police officer)
    Synonym: flic
    Tu travailles avec les cops de Gatineau ?
    Do you work with the Gatineau cops?

Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old English cop, from Proto-West Germanic *kopp.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop (plural coppes)

  1. summit (of a mountain or hill)
  2. top, tip, topmost part
  3. top of the head, crown
  4. head

Descendants

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  • English: cop
  • Scots: cop, coppe
  • Yola: kappas (plural)
  • → Welsh: copa

References

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Occitan

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Noun

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cop m (plural cops)

  1. Alternative spelling of còp

Old English

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Noun

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cop m

  1. Alternative form of copp

Old French

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Etymology 1

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Noun

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cop oblique singular, m (oblique plural cos, nominative singular cos, nominative plural cop)

  1. Alternative form of colp

Etymology 2

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From Frankish *kopp.

Noun

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cop oblique singular, m (oblique plural cos, nominative singular cos, nominative plural cop)

  1. head
Derived terms
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Polish

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Etymology

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Borrowed from German Zopf.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m inan

  1. (Chełmno-Dobrzyń) Synonym of warkocz

Further reading

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  • Kazimierz Nitsch (1907) “cop”, in “Dyalekty polskie Prus zachodnich”, in Materyały i Prace Komisyi Językowej Akademii Umiejętności w Krakowie (in Polish), volume 3, Krakow: Akademia Umiejętności, page 387

Scottish Gaelic

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Etymology

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From Middle Irish copp, borrowed from either Old English copp or Middle English copp, both meaning "top," from Proto-West Germanic *kopp.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m (genitive singular coip, plural coip)

  1. foam, froth

Derived terms

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Verb

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cop (past chop, future copidh, verbal noun copadh, past participle copte)

  1. capsize
  2. pour out, tip out
  3. foam, froth

Mutation

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Mutation of cop
radical lenition
cop chop

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Scottish Gaelic.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Slovak

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Etymology

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Derived from German Zopf.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m inan (genitive singular copu, nominative plural copy, genitive plural copov, declension pattern of dub)

  1. braid
    Synonym: vrkoč

Declension

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Declension of cop (pattern dub)
singularplural
nominativecopcopy
genitivecopucopov
dativecopucopom
accusativecopcopy
locativecopecopoch
instrumentalcopomcopmi

Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • “cop”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2024

Volapük

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Noun

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cop (nominative plural cops)

  1. hoe (tool)

Declension

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declension of cop
singular plural
nominative cop cops
genitive copa copas
dative cope copes
accusative copi copis
vocative 1 o cop! o cops!
predicative 2 copu copus
  • 1 status as a case is disputed
  • 2 in later, non-classical Volapük only

Welsh

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Etymology

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From Middle English coppe (spider), from Old English copp, from Proto-West Germanic *kopp (“round object, orb”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cop m (plural copynnod or copynnau)

  1. (obsolete) spider
    Synonyms: copyn, corryn, pryf cop, pryf copyn

Usage notes

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No longer found as an independent word, cop is now used as an element in other words for "spider", such as copyn, pryf cop and pryf copyn and derived terms.

Derived terms

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Mutation

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Mutated forms of cop
radical soft nasal aspirate
cop gop nghop chop

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Welsh.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

References

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  • R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “cop”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
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