cop
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A police officer or prison guard.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahpIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɑp
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
informal
A police officer or prison guard.
A roughly dome-shaped piece of armor, especially one covering the shoulder, the elbow, or the knee.
A tube or quill upon which silk is wound.
uncountableuk
The end of a day's play.
Alternative letter-case form of COP ("conference of the parties").
verb
transitive
To (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing.
(transitive, originally New York dialectal, informal, African-American Vernacular) To obtain, to purchase (items including but not limited to drugs), to get hold of, to take.
Take into custody
Take by theft
intransitiveusually with "to"slang
To admit, especially to a crime or wrongdoing.
transitiveslangof a pimp
To recruit a prostitute into the stable.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A police officer or prison guard.
Used this way, cop is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Nearby words
- hook , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: police officer or prison guard
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.