Sc. and north. dial. [f. COUP v.1 + -ER.] One who barters, deals, or buys and sells. Cf. COPER. Now chiefly in Comb., as herring-, horse-couper, etc.
1581. Sc. Acts Jas. VI. (1597), § 122. The halding of horses at hard meat all the Sommer season, vsed commounlie be … Cowppers.
a. 1662. R. Baillie, Lett., I. 85 (Jam.). The horse which our coupers had bought at Morton fair.
1792. Statist. Acc. Scotl., VI. 44, note (Jam.). Nor are they … a match for horse-cowpers, cow-cowpers,—the people that farmers have to deal with.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports & Adv. Scotl., xiii. (1853), 121. Its visitants, [were] Dutch herring-coupers.
