copse
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
1578, from coppice, by contraction, originally meaning “small wood grown for purposes of periodic cutting”.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
copse (plural copses)
- A thicket of small trees or shrubs.
- 1578, Rembert Dodoens (author) and Henry Lyte (translator), A niewe Herball or Historie of Plantes page 57:
- Agrimonie groweth in places not tylled, in rough stone mountaynes, in hedges and Copses, and by waysides.
- 1798, William Wordsworth, Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, lines 9–15 (for syntax):
- The day is come when I again repose
- Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
- These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts,
- Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
- Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
- ’Mid groves and copses.
- 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth (hardback edition), p19:
- Striking the highway beyond the little copse she skirted the dark iron palings enclosing Hare.
- 1578, Rembert Dodoens (author) and Henry Lyte (translator), A niewe Herball or Historie of Plantes page 57:
Synonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
thicket of small trees or shrubs
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See also[edit]
Verb[edit]
copse (third-person singular simple present copses, present participle copsing, simple past and past participle copsed)
- (transitive, horticulture) To trim or cut.
- (transitive, horticulture) To plant and preserve.
Further reading[edit]
- “Copse”, in James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume II (C), London: Clarendon Press, 1884–1928, OCLC 15566697, page 977, column 1.