Word Confusion: Cops versus Copse

Plural for the noun and third person present verb: cops
Past tense or past participle: copped
Gerund or present participle: copping

Plural: copses

A person who seeks to regulate a specified behavior, activity, practice, etc.

[British; especially in the phrase a fair cop] An arrest

[Irish; mass noun; cop-on] Shrewdness

• Practical intelligence

An instance of plagiarism

A conical mass of thread, yarn, etc., wound on a spindle ²

• A quill or tube upon which it is wound

[Architecture; Military] A merlon

[British dialect] Crest

• Tip

[British slang; usually used with a negative] Worth or value ³

[Obsolete] A spider ⁴

Verb, transitive:
To catch ⁵

• Nab

To steal

• Filch

Take

• Hold
• win

[Narcotics] To buy, steal, or otherwise obtain illegal drugs

Adopt an attitude

To perceive by one of the senses

• A small wood

It reminds me of how on a certain Illinois highway, the cops would park a patrol car in a visible area on the side of the road.

Finally, when he wouldn’t be convinced by simple police reports, the cops let him see the evidence.

“Faced with the world recession of the early 1980s, … the World Bank … became a stern economic taskmaster and cop.” – Richard J. Barnet

The Keystone Kops, Deputy Dawg, and Madeye Moody are character cops.

I dunno, that work is not much cop.

Doccop is a free plagiarism search service that pinpoints cops in essays.

“But even as he made his way along the guardwalk, sensibly from cop to cop like an experienced soldier with a proper regard for his own skin, he found himself approving Philip’s deployment of his bowmen and his espringales, and the practical way his garrison went about their defence” (Merlon).

Once a length of yarn or thread is spun it is wound around the spindle shaft or whorl to form a cop or a ball.

To the east Cloud Hill, and to the south Mow Cop, rise sharply to heights exceeding l,000 ft.

Cops! Cops! Smush ’em!

Verb, transitive:
He was copped for speeding.

If they get caught and copped, if they get nicked and weighed-off, fair enough.

I managed to cop an invitation.

England’s captain copped most of the blame.

It’ll be an easy journey, if we don’t cop any rough weather.

She copped an award for her role in the film.

He copped several A-level awards, including best all round student.

Cop that, would you — I can’t carry both myself.

He copped some hash for me.

I went and copped some dope, then got on a methadone program.

I “copped a quick look at the gentleman … on the right.” – Gail Sheehy

I don’t see the hedges, the trees, the copses; the flights of wild fowl passing across my window go unseen, too.

It transpires that the “pink tree” is not in the immediate environs of White Wells but is, in fact, close to the copse of trees near Backstone Beck.

I was standing on the brow of a small hill behind my house, a warm breeze coming through the copse of trees behind me, and my eyes skimming over the rooftops and across to the lush fields in the distance.

1. First recorded in 1855–60 from a clipping of copper, 1840–50 Americanism that is perhaps a blend of cop + -er.
2. Before 1000; Middle English, Old English cop meaning tip, top (in Middle English also head), probably cognate with the Dutch kop, the German Kopf meaning head.
3. Use of the verb in the sense to catch, hence something caught, something of value.
4. From Middle English coppe, which is from the Old English *coppe, as in ātorcoppe meaning spider, literally venom head, which is from the Old English copp meaning top, summit, head, and is from the Proto-Germanic *kuppaz meaning vault, round vessel, head, which is from the Proto-Indo-European *gū- meaning to bend, curve. Cognate with the Middle Dutch koppe, kobbe meaning spider.
5. 1695–1705; compare cap (obsolete) to arrest with the Scots cap to seize, which is from the dialectal Old French caper meaning to take, ultimately from the Latin capere.