▪ I. copse, n.
(kɒps)
Forms: 6–8 cops, 7–8 copps, 7 copp'ce, cop'se, copce, 6– copse.
[16th c. cops, copps, syncopated form of copys, coppis coppice. Like copys, also, sometimes dialectally treated as a plural.
The phonetic reduction of ME. copys to mod. copse was quite regular: cf. plurals such as crops, ME. croppes, croppis, croppys, and such words as else, once, in ME. elles, -is, -ys, ones, -is, -ys. The retention of copys, coppice, beside cops, copse, is owing to special circumstances.]
1. = coppice; a thicket of small trees or underwood periodically cut for economic purposes.
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. xxxix. 57 Agrimonie groweth..in hedges and Copses. 1587 Turberv. Trag. T. (1837) 130 There laye he close in wayte within the cops. a 1626 Bacon Max. & Uses Com. Law iv. (1630) 23 Ten loads of wood out of my copps. 1637 Milton Lycidas 42 The willows and the hazel copses green. 1770 Goldsm. Des. Vill. 137 Near yonder copse where once the garden smil'd. 1866 G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. xiii. (1878) 248 My path lying through the fields and copses. |
(β) as pl., whence rarely an erron. sing. cop.
| 1725 Lond. Gaz. No. 6420/2 Young Oaken Timber Trees, growing in Hedge-Rows, Copps, and other Parts of the..Estate. 1725 Bradley Fam. Dict. II. s.v. Woodcock, They remain all the Day..under the Leaves and amongst Cops. 1727 Ibid. I. s.v. Bird, The Birds..rest upon some tall Trees, if there are any, or on the Top of Cops. 1877 Mackay Let. in Life iii. (1890) 56 Imagine a forest of lofty slender trees with a cop between of thorny creepers. |
b. collectively. = copsewood 2; loosely, the underwood of a wood or forest.
| 1735 Somerville Chase ii. 183 Where those tow'ring Oaks Above the humble copse aspiring rise. 1814 Scott Wav. ix, A deep and wooded dell, from the copse of which arose a massive, but ruinous tower. 1827 H. Steuart Planter's G. (1828) 11 The transplanting of Copse or Underwood. 1856 Stanley Sinai & Pal. ix. 344 Deep jungles of copse. |
2. transf. and fig.
| 1633 G. Herbert Temple, Pilgrimage ii, So to cares cops I came, and there got through, With much ado. 1645 G. Daniel Poems Wks. 1878 II. 65 If I Have bristlie haire, Or my head bald, or beard in Cop'ses grow. |
3. Comb., as copse-shooting, copse-ware; copse-clad, copse-covered adjs. Also copsewood.
| 1818 Keats Endymion i. 120 Through *copse-clad vallies. 1872 Jenkinson Guide Eng. Lakes (1879) 17 Low copse-clad hills. |
| 1812 Edin. Rev. XX. 293 Rough *copse-covered cliffs. |
| 1883 Harper's Mag. Jan. 324/2 In *copse-shooting it is advisable to know both who and where are your companions. |
| 1886 T. Hardy Woodlanders ii, Mr. George Melbury, the timber, bark and *copse-ware merchant. |
▪ II. copse, cops, v.1
(kɒps)
[app. f. cops n.; but possibly f. copse n.]
trans. To fasten or shut up; to confine, enclose. Also fig.
| 1617 Hales Gold. Rem. (1688) 15 Not to suffer your labours to be copst and mued up within the poverty of some pretended method. 1647 A. Farindon Serm. (1672) I. 146 Why should we paraphrase Mercy..and draw our limitations as it were to copse her up and confine her? 1657 ― Serm. 439 (T.) Nature itself hath copsed and bound us in from flying out. |
▪ III. copse, v.2
(kɒps)
[f. copse n.]
1. trans. To treat as copse-wood; to make a copse of; ‘to preserve underwood’ (J.).
| 1575 Turberv. Venerie 82 If he chance to finde any little hewtes or springes privily copsed within the thicke where the Harte may feede by night. 1664 Evelyn Sylva (1679) 12 By Copsing the starvelings in the places where they are newly sown. 1724 Swift Drapier's Lett. vii, The neglect of copsing woods cut down hath likewise been of very evil consequences. 1827 H. Steuart Planter's G. (1828) 521 A certain proportion of the Forest Trees had been cut over, or copsed, in order to improve the closeness of the skreen at bottom. 1855 Singleton Virgil I. 128 Nor can they when they have been copsed Grow up again. |
2. To clothe with a copse. Hence copsed ppl. a.
| 1755 T. Amory Mem. (1769) I. 200 Low birch and hazle⁓trees, which copse the sides of Carlvay loch. 1782 W. Stevenson Hymn to Deity 14 Thick-cops'd hills. 1853 G. Johnston Nat. Hist. Bord. I. 154 Here the brae glows with..budding broom,—there copsed with grey willows and alders. |