cop
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɒp/
ipa: /kɑp/
ipa: /kɔp/
rhymes: -ɒp
Forms: form: cops
form: copping
form: copped
form: copped
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: You see yourself as the kind of guy who wakes up early on Sunday morning and steps out to cop the Times and croissants.
ref: 1984, Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, →ISBN, page 4:
text: 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.
ref: 1995, Norman L. Russell, Doug Grad, Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story, page 191:
text: 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.
ref: 2005, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home, Simon & Schuster, page 10:
text: Off the juice, codeine got me trippin' copped the coupe, woke up, roof is missin'...
ref: 2020, Internet Money, Gunna, Don Toliver, “Lemonade”, in B4 The Storm ft. NAV:
text: Uh, copped a BMW, new deposit, I picked up another bag Like fuck it, I'ma count while I'm in it...
ref: 2021, Polo G, “RAPSTAR”, in Einer Bankz : Synco (music), Hall of Fame:
text: 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.
ref: 2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane, spoken by Nathan (Simon Manyonda):
glosses: To obtain, to purchase (items including but not limited to drugs), to get hold of, to take.
examples: text: When caught, he would often cop a vicious blow from his father.
text: I take no shame to fight the lame / When they deserve to cop it.
ref: 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 34:
text: 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
ref: 1992, “Straight Razor”, in Roxanne Shanté (lyrics), The Bitch Is Back:
text: 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.
ref: 2009, Lee Headington, Relentless, page 5:
glosses: To (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing.
glosses: To see and record a railway locomotive for the first time.
examples: text: 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
ref: 2017, Billie Eilish, Finneas O'Connell, “Copycat”, in Don't Smile at Me, performed by Billie Eilish:
glosses: To steal.
examples: text: No need to cop a 'tude with me, junior.
glosses: To adopt.
examples: text: I already copped to the murder. What else do you want from me?
text: Harold copped to being known as "Dirty Harry".
text: He shot a guy in a bar on Martin Luther King Day and copped to first-degree manslaughter
ref: 2005, Elmore Leonard, Mr. Paradise, page 295:
glosses: To admit, especially to a crime or wrongdoing.
raw_tags: with “to”
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1967, Iceberg Slim, Pimp, published 2009, page 90:
text: 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.
ref: 2011, Shaheem Hargrove, Sharice Cuthrell, The Rise and Fall of a Ghetto Celebrity, page 55:
glosses: To recruit a prostitute into the stable.
raw_tags: of a pimp
examples: text: Cop an eyeful of this!
glosses: To take (a look, glance, etc.).
Derived terms: cop a feel
cop a load of
cop and blow
cop a plea
cop it
cop off
cop off with
cop on
cop oneself on
cop one's whack
cop onto
cop out
cop-out
copout
cop the bun
cop the needle