[f. COOPER sb.1 + -AGE.]
1. A place where a cooper’s trade is carried on.
1714. Lond. Gaz., No. 5246/2. A parcel of … unserviceable Staves … lying in the Cooperage.
1724. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit. (1748), I. 26 (D.). Room for erecting … warehouses, roap-walks, cooperages, &c.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xviii. 63. That the meeting should take place behind the cooperage.
1888. Pall Mall G., 3 Nov., 9/1. To place a cooperage … at each fishery station along the south coast.
2. The coopering of casks; cooper’s work; the business or trade of a cooper; coopery.
1740–1. A. Hill, Lett., in Wks. (1753), II. 112. The prime cost of caskage … with the care of their cooperage and ordering.
1746. in W. Thompson, R. N. Advoc. (1757), 47. Good Cooperage will be found productive of good Package.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, xiii. 376. The Cooperage, Hoops, and Nails, which such Cargo may require.
1818. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., 490. The cooperage of the French hogsheads is also a subject of complaint.
1872. Yeats, Hist. Comm., 140. In the latter part of the Middle Ages, the articles of cooperage were very numerous.
3. Money payable to a cooper for his services.
1755. Johnson, Cooperage, the price paid for cooper’s work.
1809. R. Langford, Introd. Trade, 131. Cooperage, money paid to a cooper who attends on the quays to mend casks, also to open them for samples.
4. attrib.
1871. Daily News, 5 Sept. They were compelled to pay heavy cooperage charges, though there was not a loose hoop nor a broken stave in the hold.
Mod. Advt. A Plant of Cooperage Machines can be seen in daily operation.
