cop

present singular third person cops · participle present copping · participle past copped · past copped

1. datedinformaltransitiveTo capture or arrest someone.
2. informaltransitiveAfrican-American VernacularTo obtain, to purchase (items including but not limited to drugs), to get hold of, to take.

   Off the juice, codeine got me trippin' copped the coupe, woke up, roof is missin'...

   2020, Internet Money, Gunna, Don Toliver, “Lemonade”, in B4 The Storm ft. NAV

   5 more examples

   You see yourself as the kind of guy who wakes up early on Sunday morning and steps out to cop the Times and croissants.

   1984, Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, →ISBN, page 4

   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.

   1995, Norman L. Russell, Doug Grad, Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story, page 191

   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.

   2005, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home, Simon & Schuster, page 10

   Uh, copped a BMW, new deposit, I picked up another bag Like fuck it, I'ma count while I'm in it...

   2021, Polo G, “RAPSTAR”, in Einer Bankz : Synco (music), Hall of Fame

   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.

   2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane, spoken by Nathan (Simon Manyonda)

3. transitiveTo (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.

   3 more examples

   I take no shame to fight the lame / When they deserve to cop it.

   1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 34

   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

   1992, “Straight Razor”, in Roxanne Shanté (lyrics), The Bitch Is Back

   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.

   2009, Lee Headington, Relentless, page 5

4. slangtransitiveTo see and record a railway locomotive for the first time.
5. transitiveTo steal.

   Copycat tryna cop my manner / Watch your back when you can't watch mine / Copycat tryna cop my glamor / Why so sad, bunny? Can't have mine

   2017, Billie Eilish, Finneas O'Connell, “Copycat”, in Don't Smile at Me, performed by Billie Eilish

6. transitiveTo adopt.

   No need to cop a 'tude with me, junior.

7. intransitiveslangusuallyTo admit, especially to a crime or wrongdoing.

   Harold copped to being known as "Dirty Harry".

   2 more examples

   I already copped to the murder. What else do you want from me?

   He shot a guy in a bar on Martin Luther King Day and copped to first-degree manslaughter

   2005, Elmore Leonard, Mr. Paradise, page 295

8. slangtransitiveTo recruit a prostitute into the stable.

   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.

   2011, Shaheem Hargrove, Sharice Cuthrell, The Rise and Fall of a Ghetto Celebrity, page 55

   1 more example

   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.

   1967, Iceberg Slim, Pimp, published 2009, page 90

9. slangtransitiveTo take (a look, glance, etc.).

   Cop an eyeful of this!

plural cops

1. informalA police officer or prison guard.

   Synonyms: 5-O, alphabet, barney, beatsman, bizzie, bluebottle, bluecoat, blue heeler

plural cops

1. obsoleteA spider.

plural cops

1. A quill or tube upon which silk is wound.
2. architectureA merlon.
3. historicalgovernmentA roughly dome-shaped piece of armor, especially one covering the shoulder, the elbow, or the knee.

   In the middle was a pile of armour – breastplates, helmets, vambraces, gorgets, pauldrons, cops, cuisses, sabatons, gauntlets, all mangled and ruined, ...

   2013, K. J. Parker, The Proof House, Orbit, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   […] 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.

   2004, Kevin Grace, Tom White, Cincinnati Cemeteries: The Queen City Underground, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 142

   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.

   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

4. hobbiesA conical ball of thread wound on to the spindle in a spinning machine.
5. obsoleteThe top, summit, especially of a hill.

   Cop they vſe to call / The tops of many Hils

   1622, Michael Drayton, “the thirtieth Song”, in The Second Part, or A Continuance of Poly-Olbion from the Eighteenth Song. […], London: […] Augustine Mathewes for Iohn Marriott, Iohn Grismand, and Thomas Dewe, →OCLC, page 164

plural COPs

1. UKabbreviationinitialismuncountableInitialism of close of play.
2. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountablegovernmentInitialism of conference of the parties; also CoP or Cop.

   COP stands for conference of the parties under the UNFCCC, and the annual meetings have swung between fractious and soporific, interspersed with moments of high drama and the occasional triumph (the Paris agreement in 2015) and disaster (Copenhagen in 2009).

   2019 December 2, Fiona Harvey, “Climate crisis: what is COP and can it save the world?”, in The Guardian

   1 more example

   COPs have been held in petrostates before. But fossil fuel interests appeared truly unleashed in Baku — potentially emboldened by the imminent arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, a man who has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” and pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement.

   2024 November 25, Laura Paddison, “The UN climate summit ended in bitterness and accusations of betrayal. Now fears are growing for its future”, in CNN

3. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountablegovernmentInitialism of common operational picture.
4. IrelandabbreviationcountableinitialismuncountablemedicineInitialism of community ophthalmic physician.
5. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountablenatural sciencesInitialism of center of pressure.
6. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountableInitialism of coefficient of performance.
7. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountableInitialism of code of practice.
8. South AfricaabbreviationcountableinitialismuncountablemarriageInitialism of community of property.
9. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountableInitialism of cholesterol oxidation product.

1. abbreviationbusinessAbbreviation of ConocoPhillips.

   The companies said the deal will make the new Conoco (COP) the largest independent oil-and-gas company in the United States, with daily production surpassing 1.5 million barrels. (Diversified oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron (CVX) pump more oil.)

   2020 October 19, Matt Egan, “The oil industry is in crisis. ConocoPhillips is doubling down”, in CNN Business

plural Cops

1. Alternative letter-case form of COP (“conference of the parties”).

   Rachel Kyte, a former senior World Bank official who is now dean of the Fletcher school at Tufts University in the US, and a close observer of Cops, said the war in Ukraine and the UK’s geopolitical relations were also key reasons to go.

   2022 October 30, Fiona Harvey, “Global anger at Sunak’s Cop27 snub that raises fears over UK’s climate crisis stance”, in The Guardian

plural CoPs

1. abbreviationinitialismnatural sciencesInitialism of center of pressure.
2. Alternative letter-case form of COP (“conference of the parties”).
3. abbreviationrhythmic gymnasticsgymnasticsAbbreviation of Code of Points.