cop

¹

[ kop ]

noun

, Informal.

1. a police officer.
2. a person who seeks to regulate a specified behavior, activity, practice, etc.:

   Once we have the government dictating language usage, then we'll start getting language cops.

cop

²

[ kop ]

verb (used with object)

, Slang.

, copped, cop·ping.

1. to catch; nab.
2. to steal; filch.
3. to buy (narcotics).

verb phrase

1. Slang.
   1. to avoid one's responsibility, the fulfillment of a promise, etc.; renege; back out (often followed by on or of ):

      He never copped out on a friend in need.

      You agreed to go, and you can't cop out now.

   2. cop a plea.

cop

³

[ kop ]

noun

1. a conical mass of thread, yarn, etc., wound on a spindle.
2. British Dialect. the top or tip of something, as the crest of a hill.

COP

⁴

abbreviation for

, Thermodynamics.

1. coefficient of performance.

cop.

⁵

abbreviation for

1. copper.
2. copyright; copyrighted.

Cop.

⁶

abbreviation for

1. Copernican.
2. Coptic.

COP

¹

abbreviation for

1. Certificate of Proficiency: a pass in a university subject

cop

²

/ kɒp /

noun

1. See policeman
   another name for policeman
2. an arrest (esp in the phrase a fair cop )
3. an instance of plagiarism

verb

1. to seize or catch
2. to steal
3. See score
   to buy, steal, or otherwise obtain (illegal drugs) Compare score
4. Alsocop it to suffer (a punishment)

   you'll cop a clout if you do that!

5. cop it sweet slang.
   cop it sweet
   1. to accept a penalty without complaint
   2. to have good fortune

cop

³

/ kɒp /

noun

1. slang.
   usually used with a negative worth or value

   that work is not much cop

cop

⁴

/ kɒp /

noun

1. a conical roll of thread wound on a spindle
2. dialect.
   the top or crest, as of a hill

Word History and Origins

Origin of cop¹

First recorded in 1855–60; shortening of copper ²

Origin of cop²

First recorded in 1695–1705; of uncertain origin; compare cap (obsolete) “to arrest,” Scots cap “to seize,” ultimately from dialectal Old French caper “to take,” from Latin capere

Origin of cop³

First recorded before 1000; Middle English cop(e), coppe “summit, peak; top (of a tower, building),” also “crown (of the head),” Old English cop(p) “tip, top, summit”; probably cognate with Dutch kop, German Kopf “head”; cup

Word History and Origins

Origin of cop¹

C18: (vb) perhaps from obsolete cap to arrest, from Old French caper to seize; sense 1, back formation from copper ²

Origin of cop²

C19: n use of cop ¹(in the sense: to catch, hence something caught, something of value)

Origin of cop³

Old English cop, copp top, summit, of uncertain origin; perhaps related to Old English copp cup

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. cop a plea, Slang.
   1. to plead guilty or confess in return for receiving a lighter sentence.
   2. to plead guilty to a lesser charge as a means of bargaining one's way out of standing trial for a more serious charge; plea-bargain.

Example Sentences

That means cops with dubious records sometimes get bounced around police agencies.

From Voice of San Diego

Diamandis compares it to a cop walking the beat, but for a biological threat—that is, it requires a more targeted approach than searching for one criminal.

From Fortune

However, private security agents still face far less public scrutiny than the average cop.

From Ozy

Earlier this month, Kate Nucci reported that cops since 2013 had issued at least 83 tickets for seditious language.

From Voice of San Diego

When Jennifer Strong and I started reporting on the use of face recognition technology by police for our new podcast, “In Machines We Trust,” we knew these AI-powered systems were being adopted by cops all over the US and in other countries.

From MIT Technology Review

Smith attended both funerals as a cop and as the husband of Police Officer Moira Smith, who died on 9/11.

From The Daily Beast

Lucas said that he himself nonetheless hopes to become a cop.

From The Daily Beast

Nobody ever says they want to become a cop so they can bust people for urinating in public or drinking alcohol on their stoop.

From The Daily Beast

The NOPD fired Knight in 1973 for stealing lumber from a construction site as an off-duty cop.

From The Daily Beast

They selected an “easy mark” who turned out to be an off-duty NYC Housing Authority cop named James Carragher.

From The Daily Beast

Once he had been a young cop, determined to work his way up in the police force.

From Project Gutenberg

In his efforts to clear himself, the young cop had taken half a dozen lead slugs from underworld guns into his body.

From Project Gutenberg

It was the Hermit's vast store of scientific knowledge that brought the half-dead cop back to health.

From Project Gutenberg

The sight of a traffic cop made him dodge around a corner that threw him off his course.

From Project Gutenberg

He struck just one wild haymaker of a blow that cleared the head of the cop by nearly a foot.

From Project Gutenberg

About This Word

What else does cop mean?

A cop is an informal term for a police officer.

As a verb, cop is used in a variety of slang expressions meaning “grab” or “obtain,” from copping a feel on someone (not recommended) to copping out on going to a party (meaning “not going”) to copping to (meaning “confessing to”) eating the last slice of pizza.

Where did cop come from?

The many, seemingly unrelated, meanings of cop start to make sense when you know where the word comes from. Via French, cop ultimately comes the Latin capere, or “to seize, snatch, take, grab.”

Cop became slang for “seizing” in the early 1700s. This verb may have given rise to copper, thieves’ slang for “law enforcement” by the 1840s and shortened to cop by the 1850s. For much of its history, it was often seen as dismissive or derogatory, though most police officers are just fine with it in contemporary use.

Other theories root cop as an acronym for constable on patrol (unlikely) or as a reference to copper badges early policemen wore in New York (this probably did influence the term).

Cop has taken on many other senses in the 20th century. We can find cop a feel, or “to grope someone,” in the 1930s as well as to cop to something, or “confess.” We can find cop on, or “understand something,” in the 1940s, the same decade there’s evidence for cop out, or “give up.” In the 1950s, we can find to cop as in “to obtain illegal drugs.” We can find cop an attitude, or “assume an adamant stance,” in the 1970s.

Cop has many other senses in English outside the U.S. The more British expression fair cop, or “an admission of wrongdoing,” was notably used in the 1975 Monty Python and Holy Grail.

ACAB is a derogatory acronym that stands for All Cops Are Bastards and All Coppers Are Bastards, among other variants. Often used alongside ACAB is its numerical equivalent 1312, based on the letters’ alphabetical position (A is the 1st letter in the alphabet, etc.). ACAB dates back to the 1970s.

And why are cops called 12? The number 12 is sometimes used as code word or shorthand for cops, often in derogatory contexts, such as in the 2013 song “F*** 12” by the Atlanta-area hip-hop trio Migos. While some connect this 12 to 1312 of ACAB, others think this slang item—which indeed spread from Atlanta—comes from the police radio ten-code 10-12 (“stand by”) or the 1970s Los Angeles police procedural TV show Adam-12.

Who uses cop?

Cop is all about context. As a verb, it shows up in a great number of expressions variously dealing with “grabbing,” from copping feels, attitudes, and drugs. Other verbal cops bring us back to legal territory, like copping to crimes and copping pleas. A cop-out is also a common expression for an “excuse.”

Bayonne 13-year-olds return X-Box to classmate after copping to burglary http://t.co/hyneuwIn6L

— njdotcom (@njdotcom) May 21, 2013

“Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and
don’t quit until you attain it. When you do… https://t.co/SZdKIsJPBi

— Leonard Johnson (@chang40) November 29, 2018

Law enforcement officers use cop as a convenient, gender-neutral term that can apply across various agencies. Ice-T faced massive backlash in 1992 for his song “Cop Killer.” Ironically, he’s been playing a cop on Law and Order: SVU since 2000.

Cop movies are incredibly popular, including Beverly Hills Cop (1984), RoboCop (1987,) Kindergarten Cop (1990,) Cop and a Half (1993), Timecop (1994,) Cop Land (1997,) Paul Blart, Mall Cop (2009,) and our favorite, the 1991 cinematic masterpiece that is Samurai Cop. The reality TV show Cops started in 1989 but was recently canceled in the midst of the George Floyd protests in June 2020.

More examples of cop:

“Somebody called me on the phone / They said, “Hey, is Dee Dee home? / Do you wanna take a walk? You wanna go cop? / You wanna go get some Chinese Rocks?”
—Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, “Chinese Rocks” (song), 1977

“The five charged with acting as fake cops for years, dressed like real officers, had badges, handcuffs and guns, drove vehicles with emergency lights and would tell people they were the police, investigators previously said.“
—Dominic Adams, Michigan News, September 2018

Note

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.