Forms: 6–8 cops, 7–8 copps, 7 copp’ce, cop’se, copce, 6– copse. [16th c. cops, copps, syncopated form of copys, coppis COPPICE. Like copys, also, sometimes dialectally treated as a plural.
The phonetic reduction of ME. copys to mod. copse was quite regular: cf. plurals such as crops, ME. croppes, croppis, croppys, and such words as else, once, in ME. elles, -is, -ys, ones, -is, -ys. The retention of copys, COPPICE, beside cops, COPSE, is owing to special circumstances.]
1. = COPPICE; a thicket of small trees or underwood periodically cut for economic purposes.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. xxxix. 57. Agrimonie groweth … in hedges and Copses.
1587. Turberv., Trag. T. (1837), 130. There laye he close in wayte within the cops.
a. 1626. Bacon, Max. & Uses Com. Law, iv. (1630), 23. Ten loads of wood out of my copps.
1637. Milton, Lycidas, 42. The willows and the hazel copses green.
1770. Goldsm., Des. Vill., 137. Near yonder copse where once the garden smil’d.
1866. G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., xiii. (1878), 248. My path lying through the fields and copses.
β. as plural, whence rarely an erron. sing. cop.
1725. Lond. Gaz., No. 6420/2. Young Oaken Timber Trees, growing in Hedge-Rows, Copps, and other Parts of the … Estate.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., II. s.v. Woodcock, They remain all the Day … under the Leaves and amongst Cops. Ibid. (1727), I. s.v. Bird, The Birds … rest upon some tall Trees, if there are any, or on the Top of Cops.
1877. Mackay, Lett., in Life, iii. (1890), 56. Imagine a forest of lofty slender trees with a cop between of thorny creepers.
b. collectively. = COPSEWOOD 2; loosely, the underwood of a wood or forest.
1735. Somerville, Chase, II. 183. Where those tow’ring Oaks Above the humble copse aspiring rise.
1814. Scott, Wav., ix. A deep and wooded dell, from the copse of which arose a massive, but ruinous tower.
1827. Steuart, Planter’s G. (1828), 11. The transplanting of Copse or Underwood.
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., ix. 344. Deep jungles of copse.
2. transf. and fig.
1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Pilgrimage, ii. So to cares cops I came, and there got through, With much ado.
1645. G. Daniel, Poems, Wks. 1878, II. 65. If I Have bristlie haire, Or my head bald, or beard in Cop’ses grow.
3. Comb., as copse-shooting, -ware; copse-clad, -covered adjs. Also COPSEWOOD.
1818. Keats, Endymion, I. 120. Through *copse-clad vallies.
1872. Jenkinson, Guide Eng. Lakes (1879), 17. Low copse-clad hills.
1812. Edin. Rev., XX. 293. Rough *copse-covered cliffs.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Jan., 324/2. In *copse-shooting it is advisable to know both who and where are your companions.
1886. T. Hardy, Woodlanders, ii. Mr. George Melbury, the timber, bark and *copse-ware merchant.
