cop

Etymology 1

Uncertain. Perhaps from Middle English *coppen, *copen, from Old English copian (“to plunder; pillage; steal”); or possibly from Middle French caper (“to capture”), from Latin capiō (“to seize, grasp”); or possibly from Dutch kapen (“to seize, hijack”), from Old Frisian kāpia (“to buy”), whence Saterland Frisian koopje, North Frisian koope. Compare also Middle English copen (“to buy”), from Middle Dutch copen.

verb

1. (transitive, formerly dialect, now informal) To obtain, to purchase (as in drugs), to get hold of, to take.
   You see yourself as the kind of guy who wakes up early on Sunday morning and steps out to cop the Times and croissants. 1984, Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, page 4
   He sold me a bulging paper sack full of Cambodian Red for two dolla' MPC. A strange experience, copping from a kid, but it was righteous weed. 1995, Norman L. Russell, Doug Grad, Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story, page 191
   Heroin appeared on the streets of our town for the first time, and Innie watched helplessly as his sixteen-year-old brother began taking the train to Harlem to cop smack. 2005, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home, Simon & Schuster, page 10
   Oh, come on. Help a brother out. People see you coppin', might inspire them. Look, I know you ain't payin' bills right now. Man must have bare peas saved up. 2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane, spoken by Nathan (Simon Manyonda)
2. (transitive) To (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing.
   When caught, he would often cop a vicious blow from his father.
   I take no shame to fight the lame / When they deserve to cop it. 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 34
   You bust in the house, another bitch’s mouth is suckin on your man's dick What do you do: think straight? Or do you run to the back, Open the trunk to the nickel-plate 38? “Wait wait, baby, please!” That's the shit he's coppin when he’s down on both his knees 1992, “Straight Razor”, in Roxanne Shanté (lyrics), The Bitch Is Back
3. (transitive, trainspotting, slang) To see and record a railway locomotive for the first time.
4. (transitive) To steal.
   Copycat tryna cop my manner / Watch your back when you can't watch mine / Copycat tryna cop my glamor / Why so sad, bunny? Can't have mine 2017, Billie Eilish, Finneas O'Connell (lyrics and music), “Copycat”, in Don't Smile at Me, performed by Billie Eilish
5. (transitive) To adopt.
   No need to cop a 'tude with me, junior.
6. (intransitive, usually with “to”, slang) To admit, especially to a crime or wrongdoing.
   I already copped to the murder. What else do you want from me?
   Harold copped to being known as "Dirty Harry".
   He shot a guy in a bar on Martin Luther King Day and copped to first-degree manslaughter 2005, Elmore Leonard, Mr. Paradise, page 295
7. (transitive, slang) Of a pimp: to recruit a prostitute into the stable.
   I said, 'Tell your tricks to call you here.' She laid the bearskin and freaked the joint off with her lights and other crap. Except for the fake stars it was a fair mock-up of her pad where I had copped her. 1967, Iceberg Slim, Pimp, published 2009, page 90
   The code was to call a pimp and tell him you have his hoe plus turn over her night trap but that was bull because the HOE was out of his stable months before I copped her. 2011, Shaheem Hargrove, Sharice Cuthrell, The Rise and Fall of a Ghetto Celebrity, page 55

Etymology 2

Short for copper (“police officer”), itself from the verb cop (“to lay hold of”) above, in reference to arresting criminals.

noun

1. (informal) A police officer or prison guard.

Etymology 3

From Middle English coppe, from Old English *coppe, as in ātorcoppe (“spider”, literally “venom head”), from Old English copp (“top, summit, head”), from Proto-West Germanic *kopp, from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, round vessel, head”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to bend, curve”). Cognate with Middle Dutch koppe, kobbe (“spider”). More at cobweb.

noun

1. (obsolete) A spider.

Etymology 4

From Middle English cop, coppe, from Old English cop, copp, from Proto-West Germanic *kopp, from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, basin, round object”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew-. Cognate with Dutch kop, German Kopf.

noun

1. (crafts) The ball of thread wound on to the spindle in a spinning machine.
2. (obsolete) The top, summit, especially of a hill.
3. (obsolete) The crown (of the head); also the head itself.
   The stature is bowed down in age, the cop is depressed.
4. A roughly dome-shaped piece of armor, especially one covering the shoulder, the elbow, or the knee.
   […] the elbow cop or coudiere for the elbow; and the rerebrace or arriere-bras for the upper arm. The shoulder cop, pauldron or epauliere which covered the shoulder, and often a large part of the breast and back, was usually considered a part of the arm guard. 2004, Kevin Grace, Tom White, Cincinnati Cemeteries: The Queen City Underground, Arcadia Publishing, page 142
   In the middle was a pile of armour – breastplates, helmets, vambraces, gorgets, pauldrons, cops, cuisses, sabatons, gauntlets, all mangled and ruined, ... 2013, K. J. Parker, The Proof House, Orbit
   Tilting Cuisses 457. In the 15th century the knee cops were merged in the plate cuisses. In the East, except in Japan, knee cops as separate pieces of armor were seldom used east of Turkey. 2013, George Cameron Stone, A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: in All Countries and in All Times, Courier Corporation, page 364
5. A tube or quill upon which silk is wound.
6. (architecture, military) A merlon.