Word: coop Part of Speech: verb Etymology: From Middle English cǒupe, cupe, from Old English cȳpe (“basket, cask”) or possibly from Middle Dutch cûpe (compare modern Dutch kuip, Saterland Frisian kupe, Middle Low German kûpe), from Old Saxon *kûpa, côpa (“cask”) (compare Middle Low German kôpe, Old High German chôfa, chuofa, Middle High German kuofe, modern regional German Kufe f (“cask”)), probably from Latin cūpa, Medieval Latin cōpa (“cask”) (thus a doublet of coupe, cup, and keeve). However, the Oxford English Dictionary notes that if the word is from Latin, “it is difficult to account for the umlaut in Old English cýpe”. Pronunciation: /kuːp/, /kup/, /kʉːp/, /kʉp/, /kʊp/ 1. To keep in a coop. Labels: transitive Example: Generally, and dependent on situation, and the disposition of the hen, there is no necessity for cooping the brood beyond two or three days, but they may be confined as occasion requires or suffered to range, as they are much benefited by the scratching and foraging of the hen. Example: Under a shed, where the ground is clean dust mixed with small stones, is a good place for cooping the hen for the first ten days or so; and she may after that be placed on the grass in dry weather, but not before the dew is off it. 2. To shut up or confine in a narrow space; to cramp. Labels: transitive Example: But the contempt of all other knowledge, as if it were nothing in comparison of law or physic, of astronomy or chemistry, or perhaps some yet meaner part of knowledge, wherein I have got some smattering, or am somewhat advanced, is not only the mark of a vain or little mind; but does this prejudice in the conduct of the understanding, that it coops it up within narrow bounds, and hinders it from looking abroad into other provinces of the intellectual world, […] Example: The Trojans coop'd within their walls ſo long, / Unbar their gates, and iſſue in a throng, / Like ſwarming bees, and with delight ſurvey / The camp deſerted where the Grecians lay; […] 3. To unlawfully confine one or more voters to prevent them from casting their ballots in an election. Labels: historical, intransitive, transitive Example: In 1819, one of those municipal contests for the election of the Common Council happened, and it was attended with that profuse expenditure of money in direct bribery, cooping, treating, and in short in all the modes of demoralizing the classes exposed to such influence, which were the disgraceful distinctions of those elections. Example: At Cambridge in the 1835 election it was reported that 'the worst features of the old system were maintained of cooping and taking away voters and keeping them drunk'. Cooping of the more unpleasant kind consisted in abducting the supporters of an opponent and keeping them out of the way until the election was over. Someone who had contested the borough of Lewes at more than one election remarked that 'one very expensive part of the Lewes election is putting the town in a state of siege, which we are forced to do to prevent carrying off of voters'. The first variety of cooping was of course often a safeguard against the second. 4. Of a police officer: to sleep or relax while on duty. Labels: intransitive, slang Example: COOPING. The term cooping refers to police officers sleeping on duty. […] One critic of two-man squad cars suggests that this is a recipe for cooping, since one officer can drive while the other sleeps. Example: One of his first, and most groundbreaking, stories was about "cooping," police slang for sleeping on duty. It was sparked when Burnham interviewed Jim Curran, then a New York City policeman, who referred to someone being "in the coop," Burnham recalled. […] Burnham heard that every day thousands upon thousands of New York police supposedly working the night shift were actually sleeping, stashed in coops all over the city, only to be awakened if a crime was discovered. […] Cooping was a natural result and a dramatic example of a city agency misusing its resources. 5. To make or repair barrels, casks and other wooden vessels; to work upon in the manner of a cooper. Labels: obsolete, transitive Example: When two dozen or more rings of iron were assembled around lengths of iron in this way they created a type of simple tube, termed a "barrel" from its manufacturing origin in cooping. Example: To the left [of the print] is a group of three figures around a collapsing barrel. […] The barrel disintegrates into its constituent staves, literally translating into picture the Dutch expression 'in duigen vallen' (to become utterly undone). Earlier we saw that cooping a barrel stands for forging a conspiracy—here we see the opposite. Whereas in the other Dominicus-cartoons we see a cooper hammering the hoops in place around the barrel, here, in a very similar gesture, the hoops are being cut.