Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A thicket of small trees or shrubs; a coppice.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See coppice.
- To cut or trim, as brushwood, tufts of grass, and the like.
- To plant or preserve, as underwoods.
- To inclose as in a copse.
- To form a coppice; grow up again from the roots after being cut down, as brushwood.
- Also coppice.
- n. Same as cops.
Wiktionary
- n. A thicket of small trees or shrubs.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A wood of small growth; a thicket of brushwood. See coppice.
- v. To trim or cut; -- said of small trees, brushwood, tufts of grass, etc.
- v. To plant and preserve, as a copse.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a dense growth of bushes
Etymologies
- Middle English copys, from Old French copeiz, thicket for cutting, from coper, couper, to cut; see cope1.
Examples
“I mean at least on my left hand (upon which side they were), for in front where the brook ran out of the copse was a good stiff hedge of holly.”
“In the copse was a hidden patch of bare earth, known only to Janie and several thousand people who were wont to use it in pairs at night.”
More Than Human
“Beyond the copse was a row of huddled-up cottages.”
Five Fall Into Adventure
“In the heart of the copse was a rude wooden bench, built some years before by the factor's orders.”
“Such little meadows as these about the copse are the favourite resort of birds and the very home of flowers -- more so than extensive woods like the Chace, or the open pastures and arable fields.”
“No need saying that the cavalcade seen passing the copse is the lancer troop of Colonel Uraga.”
“The chief timber of the copse was the pecan hickory -- almost an evergreen -- and the trees were still in full leaf; only here and there, where the trunks stood far apart, did the moonbeams strike through the thick frondage.”
“Whilst he and Leander walked over the hill, they descended into a fine valley, at the bottom of which was a little kind of copse or thicket, composed of stately tall trees and close quickset hedges.”
The Inhuman Stepmother, or the History of Miss Harriot Montague
“Every human being has a natural right to walk across this copse, which is all waste ground, and has no crop sown in it.”
“The young spaniel stalks under the copse of birch trees, thrusting his snout into the rabbit holes and intermittently exhaling hot air from his nostrils into the burrows.”
The Guardian: Spring's here: skylarks overhead, moles in the garden, moths in the bathroom
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘copse’.
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Watership Down
Every time there's a group discussion, I'll remember that it's just a bunch of bunnies sitting around and I'll laugh.
copse, lapine, creosote, stoat, kestrel, lollop, bluebottle, warren, myxomatosis
milosrdenstvi And robberse! Nov 10, 2010