- Now Dial. the top or crest, as of a hill
- a cone-shaped roll of thread or yarn coiled round a spindle
Origin of cop
Middle English and Old English cop, probably akin to German kopf and Dutch kop, head from Late Latin cuppa: see cup
A police officer is called a cop.
- The definition of cop is a spindle of thread or yarn, or is slang for police officer.
- An example of a cop is thread round around a spindle in a cone shape.
- An example of a cop is a person who gives traffic tickets.
- Cop is defined as to buy drugs, or to capture or steal.
An example of cop is to take a person's bike without asking.
YourDictionary definition and usage example. Copyright © 2018 by LoveToKnow Corp
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"cop." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 19 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP>.
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cop. (n.d.). Retrieved January 19th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP
cop
transitive verb
copped, cop′ping- to seize, capture, take, win, steal, etc.
- to buy (drugs)
Origin of cop
from north British dialect, dialectal form of obsolete cap, to seize; probably from Old French caper from Classical Latin capere, to take: see have a policeman
Origin of cop
prob. < coppercop Idioms
cop a plea
to plead guilty to a criminal charge, esp. so as to get a lighter sentence
cop out
- to confess to the police, often implicating another
- to go back (on a promise, commitment, etc.); back down; renege
- to give up; quit; surrender
cop to
to admit or acknowledge
copyright
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"cop." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 19 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP>.
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cop. (n.d.). Retrieved January 19th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP
cop
noun
Informal- A police officer.
- One that regulates certain behaviors or actions: “Faced with the world recession of the early 1980s, … the World Bank … became a stern economic taskmaster and cop” ( Richard J. Barnet )
Origin of cop
Short for copper 2Slang
transitive verb
copped, cop·ping, cops- a. To get hold of; gain or win: a show that copped four awards; copped a ticket to the game.b. To perceive by one of the senses: “copped a quick look at the gentleman … on the right” ( Gail Sheehy )
- To take unlawfully or without permission; steal.
Origin of cop
Probably variant of cap to catch from Old French caper from Latin capere ; see capture .noun
- A cone-shaped or cylindrical roll of yarn or thread wound on a spindle.
- Chiefly British A summit or crest, as of a hill.
Origin of cop
Middle English summit from Old English
cop3
Cop.
abbreviation
Coptic
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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MLA Style
"cop." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 19 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP>.
APA Style
cop. (n.d.). Retrieved January 19th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP
Origin
From Middle English coppe, from Old English *coppe, as in ātorcoppe (“spider”, literally “venom head”), from Old English copp (“top, summit, head”), from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, round vessel, head”), from Proto-Indo-European *gū- (“to bend, curve”). Cognate with Middle Dutch koppe, kobbe (“spider”). More at cobweb.
Verb
(third-person singular simple present cops, present participle copping, simple past and past participle copped)
- (formerly dialect, now informal) to obtain, to purchase (as in drugs), to get hold of, to take
- 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
- to steal
- to adopt
- No need to cop an attitude with me, junior.
- (intransitive, usually with "to", slang) to admit, especially to a crime.
- I already copped to the murder. What else do you want from me?
- Harold copped to being known as "Dirty Harry".
Origin
Possibly from Middle French capere (“to capture”), from Latin capere (“to seize, to grasp”); or possibly from Dutch kapen (“to steal”), from West Frisian kāpia (“to take away”), from Old Frisian kapia, to buy.
Noun
(plural cops)
- (slang, law enforcement) A police officer or prison guard.
Origin
Short for copper (“police officer”), itself from cop (“one who cops”) above, i.e. a criminal.
Noun
(plural cops)
Origin
Old English cop, copp, from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, basin, round object”), from Proto-Indo-European *gu-. Cognate with Dutch kop, German Kopf.
Usage notes
This is the currency code used in the ISO 4217 standard.
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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MLA Style
"cop." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 19 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP>.
APA Style
cop. (n.d.). Retrieved January 19th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/COP
Sentence Examples
- You a cop or something?
- He's already killed a cop who stopped him down south.
- I was a cop for a lot of years.
- And yet he knew he couldn't turn his back on the quest—there were too many cop years and too much history in the make up of David Dean.
- Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), an eccentric American Methodist revivalist, visited North Staffordshire and spoke of the campmeetings held in America, with the result that on the 31st of May 1807 the first real English gathering of the kind was held on Mow Cop, since regarded as the Mecca of Primitive Methodism.
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