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 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.
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, trans. 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. Ibid. (1724), 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-shop, cooper’s shop.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., X. (1682), 444. All the Cowper-shops, and dwelling-Houses … adjoyning to the Town’s Wall.
