▪ I. cooper, n.1
(ˈkuːpə(r))
Forms: 5–6 couper, 5–8 cowper, (5 cowpare, 6 coupar), 6– cooper.
[Occurs in 15th c. as couper, cowper, cowpar; app. of LG. origin: cf. MDu. cuper, 15th c. Niederrheinisch kuper, E.Fris. kuper, mod.LG. (Bremen, Hamb.) küper, dial. MHG. küefer, mod.G. küfer, also dial. kufer; from MDu. cupe, LG. kupe, mod.G. kufe, cask; in med.L. cūpārius, cūperius, f. cūpa cask: see coop. (It is not an Eng. derivative of coop, which, so far as appears, has never had the sense ‘cask’.)
An old spelling remains in the surname Cowper, pronounced Cooper by those who bear it.]
1. a. A craftsman who makes and repairs wooden vessels formed of staves and hoops, as casks, buckets, tubs.
A dry cooper makes casks, etc., to hold dry goods, a wet cooper those to contain liquids, a white cooper pails, tubs, and the like for domestic or dairy use. See also butt-cooper, etc.
| c 1415 York Myst. Introd. 20 Coupers. c 1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 650 Hic cuparius, cowpare. c 1450 Nom. ibid. 686 Hic cuperius, a cowper. 1474 Caxton Chesse 77 The other ben coupers. 1520 MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp., Canterb., Paed to the couper for new bottomyng of a bukket. 1523 Act 14–15 Hen. VIII, c. 2 The misteries..of smithes, joigners, or coupars. 1589 Pappe w. Hatchet (1844) 16 Now you talke of a cooper, Ile tell you a tale of a tubb. 1653 H. Cogan tr. Pinto's Trav. lvi. (1663) 221 He had in his hand an Hatchet in the form of a Coopers Addis. 1669 Sturmy Mariner's Mag. v. 63 Nailed with Coopers Nails. 1720 Lond. Gaz. No. 5874/4 Michael Morgatroid, of Ripon, Cowper. 1724 Ibid. No. 6249/10 John Higgs..Turner and Wet-Cooper. 1837 Whittock Bk. Trades (1842) 161 The ‘Dry-cooper’ is employed in making sugar hogsheads and other casks. 1854 H. Miller Sch. & Schm. (1858) 43 The coopers..now tightening hoops, and now slackening them. |
b. On board ship: One who looks to the repair of casks and other vessels.
| 1627 Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. viii. 36 The Cooper is to looke to the caske, hoopes and twigs, to staue or repaire the buckets, baricos, cans, steepe tubs. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Cooper, a rating for a first-class petty officer, who repairs casks, etc. |
c. From the practices of the journeymen coopers employed on vessels in the Thames, the word acquired in the end of the 18th c. an evil connotation.
| 1800 Colquhoun Comm. Thames 65 No inconsiderable portion of the pillage fell to the share of Journeymen Coopers..necessary to repair casks and packages, which have suffered injury in the stowage. They have even been known to break hogsheads wilfully to obtain plunder. Ibid. 64 Coopers, Revenue Officers, and the Ship's Crew all participated in the spoil. 1840 Marryat Poor Jack xviii, Then we've the Coopers and Bumboat-men and the Rat-catchers and the Scaffle Hunters and the River Pirates..all living by their wits. |
2. One engaged in the trade of sampling, bottling, or retailing wine; a wine-cooper.
| [1465 Mann. & Househ. Exp. 285 Paid for caryage of a hoggeshed of wyne into his place at London, viij. d. Item to the cowper the same tyme, iiij. d.] 1502 Arnolde Chron. (1811) 88 Wher as the cowpers of this cite haue vsed and dayly vse to colour straungers goodis as in taking vpon them malmeseis and other wynes belongyng to strangers to bee their owne. 1678 Phillips, Cannister, A certain Instrument which Coopers use in the racking of the Wine. 1837 Whittock Bk. Trades (1842) 162 The Wine-Cooper is employed in drawing off, bottling and packing wine, etc. |
3. ? A six- (or twelve-) bottle basket, used in wine-cellars.
[Prob. from its use by wine-coopers.]
| 1817 T. L. Peacock Melincourt II. xx. 80 Give me a roaring fire and a six bottle cooper of claret. 1829 W. H. Maxwell Stories of Waterloo, F. Kennedy, He and the ambassador having discussed a cooper of port within a marvellous short period. 1876 Grant One of the ‘600’ lii. 436 And a rare cooper of old port Davie Binns shall set abroach. |
4. A mixture composed half of stout and half of porter. (So called in London, and some other places: see quot. 1873.)
| 1871 M. Collins Mrq. & Merch. I. viii. 252 Vast hunches of bread and meat and stone jars of ‘cooper’, being the favourite form of refreshment. 1873 Slang Dict., Cooper, ‘stout half and half’, i.e. half stout and half porter. Derived from the coopers at breweries being allowed so much stout and so much porter a day, which they take mixed. |
5. Comb., as cooper-stuff; cooper-shop, cooper's shop.
| 1632 Lithgow Trav. x. (1682) 444 All the Cowper-shops, and dwelling-Houses..adjoyning to the Town's Wall. 1827 Drake & Mansfield Cincinnati viii. 65 Eleven cooper shops 48 men. 1894 H. Frederic Copperhead 55 He had been a well-to-do man..with a big cooper-shop. |
| 1659 in Rowley (Mass.) Early Rec. (1894) 104 The Decay of usefull timber for Cowper stuff. 1801 in C. Cist Cincinnati (1841) 183 Charles Faran advertises for cooper-stuff. |
▪ II. ˈcooper, n.2
[f. coop v.1 + -er.]
One who coops or confines. (With quot. cf. coop v.1 2 c.)
| 1889 Farmer Americanisms 168/2 To coop voters is to collect them as it were in a coop or cage, so as to be sure of their services on election day. Liquor dealers are the usual ‘coopers’ for obvious reasons. |
▪ III. cooper n.3
var. of coper.
▪ IV. cooper, v.
(ˈkuːpə(r))
[f. cooper n.1]
1. trans. To make or repair (casks, etc.); to furnish or secure with hoops.
| 1746 in W. Thompson R.N. Advoc. (1757) 8 One, two, or three Months..expiring before they are cooper'd and made tight. 1834 Fraser's Mag. X. 32 Coopered with brass hoops weather-tight. 1840 H. Cockton Val. Vox (1856) 177 ‘I'll cooper it up’..And he began to repair the cask. |
2. To put or stow in casks.
| 1746 in W. Thompson R.N. Advoc. (1757) 42 Many a Cart-Load..brought into the..Victualling Office, and Slaughtered, Salted, Pack'd, Cooper'd, etc. 1860 Merc. Marine Mag. VII. 210 The whalers..resort thither to ‘cooper their oil’. |
3. intr. To work as a cooper, do cooper's work.
| In mod. Dicts. |
4. trans. To ‘rig up’, furbish up, put into a presentable form. colloq.
| 1829 Scott Jrnl. II. 199, I employed my leisure..to peruse Mure of Auchendrane's trial, out of which something might be coopered up for the public. 1833 M. Scott Tom Cringle (1859) 174 When I was washed and cleansed, and fairly coopered up. |
5. To ‘do for’, spoil. slang. (Cf. cooper n.1 1 c.)
| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 351 The ring-dropping ‘lurk’ is now carried on this way, for the old style is ‘coopered’. 1873 Slang Dict. 31 Cooper'd (spoilt) by too many tramps calling there. [Said of a house.] 1877 Besant & Rice Son of Vulc. i. ix. 99 ‘The cove wasn't at home, and the slavey'd been changed, and the ken was coopered.’ |