[f. COOPER sb.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 sb.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.’
