cop, copper
»It’s only the fools as gets copped.» (T. T. T. 162. 15.)
Uncultivated Londoner.
»I nearly got copped.» (Miss Hobbs 42. 18.)
Easy conversation between gentlemen.
»I have seen her fling her petticoats about, when the copper wasn’t by.» (T. T. T. 132. 16.)
A waiter.
= to seize, to catch.
The word is probably originally thieves’ cant, and has here the sense of arrest.
A cop or copper: a policeman.
The etymology of cop is doubtful. It has been associated with the Gipsy kap or cop = to take, with the root of the Latin cap-io, and with the Hebrew cop = a hand or palm. Farmer-Henley (Dict. of Slang and Coll. Engl.) observes that low-class Jews employ the term, and understand it to refer to the act of snatching.