Forms: 1– cop, 3–7 coppe, (7 cops). [OE. cop, copp top, summit; generally thought to be identical with prec., since in MDu. cop developed (after 12th c.) the sense ‘skull’ and then ‘head,’ and kopf was in MHG. ‘cup,’ in mod.Ger. ‘head.’ Cf. also the analogy of L. testa pot, shell, skull, It. testa, F. tête head. But in OE. the sense ‘skull’ or even ‘head’ is not known, only that of ‘top, summit,’ which hardly runs parallel with the words in the other langs., besides being so much earlier. It is possible that the two words are distinct or only related farther back.
(One might suppose that kop(p) top, was the native OE. word, and copp of the Northumbrian Gospels a. ON. kopp’r: but the whole subject of the history and origin of these words in Teut. is very obscure: see Kluge, and Franck, also CUP.) There was also an OF. coppe, summit (cf. COPEROUN), by which our word may have been influenced.]
I. 1. The top or summit of anything. Obs. or dial.
a. 1000. Aldhelm Gl. (Mone) 1576 (Bosw.). Coppe, summitate.
c. 1205. Lay., 7781. And þa turres cop [c. 1275 toppe] mihte weoren a cniht mid his capen.
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 59/185. A gret treo, So heiȝ þat he was a-drad toward þe coppe i-seo.
c. 1385. Chaucer, L. G. W., 738, Tisbe. This wal … Was clove a two ryght from the cop a-doun. Ibid. (c. 1386), Prol. C. T., 554. Upon the cop right of his nose he hade A werte, and theron stood a tuft of heres.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), I. 81. In Ynde beeþ trees, þat haueþ coppis as hiȝe as me schal schete wiþ an arwe.
1388. Wyclif, Jer. ii. 16. [Thei] han defoulid thee, til to the cop of the heed.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 91. Coppe or coper of a other thynge [MS. K, top of an hey thyng; Pynson 1499 coppe of an hye thinge], cacumen.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, II. lix. 225. Ye floures … lacke suche a come or coppe.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 271. The wals … want their battlements, curtain, and coppe.
1611. Cotgr., Pignon, a Finiall, Cop, or small Pinacle on the ridge or top of a house.
[1879. G. Meredith, Egoist, I. 255. A venerable gentleman for whom a white hair grew on the cop of his nose.]
b. esp. of a hill.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., II. iv. 44. On þe cop of þe mountayngne.
1382. Wyclif, Luke iv. 29. And ledde him to the cop of the hil on which the cite of hem is found.
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), iii. 17. Aboven at the Cop of the Hille is the Eir so cleer.
c. 1430. Life St. Kath. (1884), 63. In þe coppe of the hille plente of oyle welleth oute largely.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 107. This cape is a high hil … and on the East corner it hath a high cop.
[1628. Coke, On Litt., I. i. § 1, note. Cope signifieth a Hill, and so doth Lawe.
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Cop, cope at the beginning of a name, signifies a top of an hill, as Copeland.]
Hence in many names of hills, as Coulderton Cop, Kinniside Cop in Cumberland, Meltham Cop near Huddersfield, Mowl Cop in Cheshire, Fin Cop in Derbyshire, etc.
† c. The head. Obs.
c. 1264. Song agst. K. of Almaine, in Pol. Songs (Camd.), 70. Sire Simond de Montfort hath suore by ys cop.
c. 1275. Lay., 684. Bi þe coppe [c. 1205 þone toppe] he him nam, also he hine wolde slean.
c. 1326. Poem on Times Edw. II., in Pol. Songs, 326. And there shal symonye ben taken bi the cop.
a. 1600[?]. Robin Hood, 28, in Furniv., Percy Folio, I. 27. A payre of blacke breeches the yeoman had on, his coppe all shone of steele.
† d. A crest on the head of a bird. Obs.
1483. Cath. Angl., 75. Cop, cirrus, crista est auium.
1570. Levins, Manip., 169. The cop on a birdes head, crista.
1606. Holland, Sueton., 23. The blacke cop, or hair-like fethers that it carieth upon the head.
1688. J. Clayton, in Phil. Trans., XVII. 995. The one has a tufted Cops on the Head, the other is smooth feather’d.
1787. Best, Angling (ed. 2), 89. The top, or cop, of a pevit, plover, or lap-wing.
† e. A tall or towering head-dress. Obs.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 395/1. The Jews cover for the head I have seen termed a Cop.
† 2. A round piece of wood within the top of a bee-hive. Obs.
1609. C. Butler, Fem. Mon. (1623), C. 3. The Coppe is a round piece of wood an inch or two thick…; the vpper is conuex, turned or hewed fit to the concauitie of the top of the Hive.
3. Spinning. The conical ball of thread wound upon a spindle or tube in a spinning machine; see also quot. 1874.
1795. Aikin, Country Round Manchester, 167. The custom of giving them out weft in the cops … grew into disuse.
1803. Specif. Wood’s Patent, No. 2711. 2. These methods of forming the cop improves reeling much.
1837. Penny Cycl., VIII. 96/1. While returning to the roller, the thread which has been spun is wound or built on the spindle in a conical form, and is called a cop.
1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 292. Never mind whether the man … ever made a ‘cop’ of cotton or not.
1864. R. A. Arnold, Cotton Famine, 33. Spinners … have, in technical language … to ‘doff the cops’; in other words … to remove and relieve the spindles of the spun yarn.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Cop, a tube, also known as a quill, for winding silk upon in given lengths for market; a substitute for skeins.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 998. At the commencement of the formation of a set of cops, when the yarn is being wound on the bare spindles, the spindles require to have a greater number of turns given to them than they do when the cop bottom is formed.
1880. Spencer, in Proc. Inst. Mech. Engineers, 507. It is necessary … to wind the nose of the cop in all its stages equally close and firm.
b. transf. Applied to the form in which the line of a rocket-apparatus is wound.
1887. Daily News, 9 March, 6/7. The line is wound up in the form of a cop with a hollow extending throughout its whole length. The cop is placed in a canister, which has a hole in the rear end.
II. [Here are placed provisionally several senses, obs. or dialectal, possibly related to the preceding; though their history is uncertain.]
4. ? A heap, mound, tumulus: cf. COP v.1 1, COOP sb.3
1666. in Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1883), I. 315. That the said Roger … throw the coppe hee made upon the highway … into the castle trench.
1823. New Monthly Mag., IX. 16/1. Silver coins … found … in an old cop upon Cockey Moor, near Bolton.
1847. Halliwell, Cop (1) … a heap of anything. North.
5. A conical heap of unbound barley, oats, or pease, or of straw or hay. (Chiefly in Kent.)
1512. MS. Acc. St. John’s Hosp., Canterb. Payd for viij coppys off strawe xiiijd. ob.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 43. Corne … is presently to be bounde in sheaves; although Barly, Oates, and other Corne and Pulse is made up in Coppes and Ryckes, but not without hurt and hazard.
1648. Earl Westmoreland, Otia Sacra (1879), 175. With crooked Sickle reaps and bindes—Up into Sheaves to help the hindes; Whose arguing alon ’s in this, Which Cop lies well, and which amiss.
1695. Kennett, Par. Antiq., s.v. Coppire, A cop of hay, a cop of pease, a cop of straw, &c. are us’d in Kent for a high rising heap.
1736. Lewis, Tenet [= Thanet], 96 Cop of pease … 15 sheaves in the field, and 16 in the barn. [Hence in Pegge, Halliwell, etc.]
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric., II. 720–7 (in O. C. & F. Wds., 139). Cop of straw (Kent), the straw from sixteen sheaves.
1887. Parish & Shaw, Kentish Dial., Cop, a shock of corn; a stack of hay or straw.
6. An enclosing mound or bank; a hedge-bank. Chiefly in Cheshire.
In the first quot. the word is perhaps copse.
[1600. Maides Metam., II. in Bullen, O. Pl., I. 128. I do come about the coppes Leaping vpon flowers toppes.]
1822–56. De Quincey, Confess. (1862), 101. On the right bank of the river [Dee] runs an artificial mound, called the Cop.
1836. Sir G. Head, Home Tour, 60. Walking by the side of the river, upon the Dee Cop, as it is called (the large embankment by which some thousands of acres of reclaimed land were formerly enclosed).
1844. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., V. I. 99–103.
1854. R. Eg.-Warburton, Hunt. Songs (1883), 97. And straightway at a hedgerow cop he drove his gallant steed.
1869. Lonsdale Gloss., Cop, a mound or bank. The raised earthen part of a fence in which the thorns are planted.
1887. S. Cheshire Gloss., Cop, a hedge bank. Also commonly called hedge-cop.
7. The central ridge of a butt of plowed land (BUTT sb.6), lying midway between the reens’ or gutters on each side.
1859. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XX. I. 221. The fashion was to plough in ‘five-bolt butts,’ that is, small lands or stetches of ten furrows each; and the work being thus all ‘cops’ and ‘reanes,’ not only was there a waste of ground from such a redundance of water-furrows, but there was a great loss of time in ploughing.
1876. W. Worcester Gloss., Cop, in ploughing, the first ‘bout’ of a ‘veering.’
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropshire Work-bk., Cop, the highest part of a ‘but’ in ploughed land.
1881. Leicester Gloss., s.v., To ‘set the cops’ in ploughing is to mark out the first furrows on each side of the spaces or ‘lands’ into which the field is divided…. The cops of a field in med. Latin are capita.
8. attrib. and Comb., as † cop-crowned adj.; cop-bone, the knee-cap (dial.); † cop-castle (see quot.); † cop-height, a great height; cop-horse = COCK-HORSE (dial.); cop-spinner, a spinning machine combining in one frame the advantages of the throstle and mule; cop-tube (see quot.); cop-twist, ‘twist’ or warping yarn in ‘cops,’ as taken off the spindles; cop-waste, the waste cotton from the cops; cop-yarn, cotton yarn in ‘cops.’
1847–78. Halliwell, *Cop-bone, the knee-pan. Somerset.
1888. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., Cop-bone, the knee-cap.
1755. Johnson, s.v. Cop. A cob-castle, properly *cop-castle, a small castle or house on a hill.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., 3. The Genuensians for the most part have high and *coppe-crown’d heads.
1591. in Nichols, Progr. Q. Eliz., III. 93. That Envie, though she shoote on *cop-height, cannot reach her.
1877. E. Peacock, N. W. Linc. Gloss., *Cop-horse.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 619. *Cop-tube, the tube in a spinning-machine on which the conical ball, or cop, of thread or yarn is formed.
1888. Daily News, 25 April, 2/5. Some spinnings of 32’s and 40’s *cop twist … an advance was quoted upon them of 1-16d. per lb.
1849. Amer. Railroad Jrnl., 3 Nov., 696. Advt., Clean *cop-waste suitable for cleaning … engines.
1851. Art Jrnl. Illust. Catal., p. vi **/2. A conical-shaped coil of yarn … which … is slid off the spindle, in which state the article is ready for the market, under the denomination of *Cop yarn.
1887. Daily News, 16 July, 6/8. For cop yarns spinners are willing to accept the lowest prices they have taken.
