ppl. a. Obs. [Related to COPPLE sb. 2, and COPPLED; but in senses 2 and 3 app. influenced by cockling, toppling.]
1. Swelling upwards to a summit.
1670. H. Stubbe, The Plus Ultra, 144. It rose with an unequal intumescence, copling, like a loaf in the midst.
1688. in Somers, Tracts, Ser. I. II. 305. A few Foreigners of no Quality were only to keep the Secret of what her Majesty was to make the copling Belly.
1694. Narborough, etc. Voy., I. 23. A small rocky Island, copling up like a Haycock. Ibid., 42. Large Hills, and some round copling tops. Ibid., 80. Two peaked copling Rocks.
1745. P. Thomas, Jrnl. Anson’s Voy., 18. The Country about it is pretty much on the Level, except a few copling Hillocks to the Northward.
2. Of the sea: Surging up into short irregular waves, tumbling; = COCKLING ppl. a. 2.
1667. H. Stubbe, in Phil. Trans., II. 497. The waves … are short, and make a Copling Sea in the Bay of Biscay.
3. Of stones, etc.: Unsteady, toppling; = COCKLING ppl. a. 3.
a. 1825. Forby, Coppling, adv., unsteady, in danger of falling. ‘It stands coppling, as if it stood upon its head.’
