Obs. exc. dial. Also copse. [Derivation unknown: copse is app. for the plural cops, the plural being common in local names of this apparatus, e.g., lead-trees, ripples, etc.; but it is also possible that copse was really a singular, and cop mistakenly formed from it under the notion that it was a plural: cf. the history of COPSE sb.]. The moveable frame attached to the front of a wagon or farm cart, or projecting all round its sides, so as to extend its surface when carrying a bulky load, as of hay, corn, copsewood, or the like.
1679. P. Henry, Diaries, etc. (1882), 279. A child … fell off ye cop of ye cart near Odford, his father driving the cart.
1770. Ann. Reg., 154. [Taken to execution with] her coffin on the copse of the cart.
1841. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., II. I. 76. The outrigger, or ‘copse,’ supported over the horse by an iron upright from the shafts.
1847–78. Halliwell, Cop, that part of a waggon which hangs over the thiller-horse [no source or locality given].
