COP

7 definitions found across Law Mind sources

COPAuthored
The Law Mind • 845 words
Definition
"Cop" does not function as an independent legal term with substantive meaning. In the historical law dictionaries surveyed, the entry for "Cop" redirects entirely to LAND COP, which refers to the copyhold tenure system of English property law — specifically, the copy of the court roll by which a copyholder received and evidenced title to land held from a manor. The abbreviation "Cop" in this context is shorthand for "copyhold" or "copy," as in the documentary instrument of transfer under manorial custom. Researchers encountering "cop" in a legal context should treat it as a cross-reference term rather than a defined substantive doctrine. Its legal weight is carried entirely by the entries to which it points.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An abbreviation for ConocoPhillips (corporate ticker/brand abbreviation); also colloquially, a police officer. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The top or crest of something (archaic); a conical mass of wound thread or yarn on a spindle; a policeman (noted as slang). The gap here is complete. In common modern and historical usage, "cop" means either a police officer (slang) or a physical object shaped like a cone or spool. Neither meaning has any connection to its rare legal usage. In the law dictionaries, "cop" appears only as an abbreviated pointer to the copyhold land tenure system — a meaning entirely invisible to the common reader and wholly disconnected from the colloquial sense.
Common Confusion
Three distinct uses of "cop" exist in English and can create confusion for researchers: 1. The colloquial "cop" meaning police officer has no legal term of art status — it is informal and does not appear in legal definitions or pleadings as a technical term. 2. The historical legal "cop" redirecting to LAND COP concerns copyhold tenure, a form of feudal land holding in England largely abolished by the Law of Property Act 1922. It has no counterpart in American property law as a living doctrine. 3. "Coparcenary" and related coparcenary estates (see below) appear near the "Cop" entries in Bouvier and are sometimes loosely associated with "cop" as a root. These are distinct concepts and should not be conflated.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research value of "Cop" as a dictionary entry is navigational: it signals to the researcher to pursue LAND COP and COPYHOLD as the substantive entries. Any 19th-century or earlier English legal document using "cop" in a property context almost certainly refers to copyhold tenure or its incidents. Researchers working in American property history will find copyhold tenure and LAND COP rarely operative, though Bouvier notes coparcenary estates — closely associated in historical sources with this cluster — did sometimes arise in early American jurisdictions including Indiana, Virginia (Grattan reports), Missouri, and Maryland. Seeing "cop" in American records from the 18th or early 19th century may indicate either a direct transplant of English manorial vocabulary or, more likely, a loose reference to a co-ownership arrangement requiring clarification by context. Do not rely on Burrill's entry under "Cop" for substantive doctrine — the surviving text in the surveyed source is fragmentary and concerns a different topic (convict recusants) that appears to be a typographical adjacency artifact, not a connected definition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier treats "Cop" as a bare cross-reference to LAND COP, providing no independent definition. This is consistent with Bouvier's general practice for abbreviated or derivative terms. Burrill's entry as preserved is not useful for "Cop" as a defined term — the text fragment reproduced concerns "convict recusant" in English law and appears to be a page-layout artifact from the original volume rather than a substantive entry for "Cop." Researchers should not draw doctrinal conclusions from Burrill's fragment here. Neither source engages with "cop" as a term for a police officer, consistent with that usage being treated as slang rather than a legal term of art in the 19th century. Neither source anticipates modern corporate abbreviation usage. The historical dictionaries are in agreement that "cop" carries no independent legal weight and functions only as a pointer term. What they miss, collectively, is any transition note: by the time American legal dictionaries were being compiled in the 19th century, the copyhold system that gave "land cop" its meaning was already a dead letter in American jurisdictions, making the entry more historical than practical even at the time of publication.
Jurisdictional Note
LAND COP and copyhold tenure are English law concepts with no direct American equivalent. Coparcenary estates, which appear adjacent to "Cop" in Bouvier, had limited recognition in some American jurisdictions in the 19th century but are not a significant feature of modern American property law.
Related Terms
LAND COP — the substantive entry to which this term redirects COPYHOLD — the tenure system underlying the "cop" abbreviation COPARCENARY — co-ownership by descentadjacent in historical sources COPY OF COURT ROLL — the documentary instrument in copyhold tenure TENANCY IN COMMON — modern American analog for some co-ownership arrangements CO-OWNERSHIP — broader genus of shared property interests
COPmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
See LAND COP. COPARCENARY, ESTATES IN. Estates of which two or more persons form one heir. 1 Washb. R. P. 414. The title to such an estate is always by descent. The shares of the tenants need not be equal. The estate is rare in America, but sometimes exists; 3 Ind. 360; 4 Gratt. 16; 17 Mo. 18: 3 Md. 190. See Watk. Conv. 145. CO-OWNERSHIP; JOINT OWNERSHIP TENANCY IN COMMON, PARTNERSHIP PROP- ERTY; COMMUNITY PROPERTY.
COPmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867
( 376 ) cision. Staundf. Pl. Cor. 186. Termes cort; Lat. convehere, to convey or conduct de la Ley. Cowell. Wharton's Lex. Consafely.] In commercial and international vict recusant, in English law, was a person law. A naval force under the command who had been legally prosecuted, indicted, and convicted for refusing to come to church to hear the common prayer, according to several statutes of Elizabeth and James. Termes de la Ley. (377) in are two or more females, his daughters, sis- opportunity of access. Sui copiam facere; ters, aunts, cousins, or their representatives; to put one's self within another's reach; in this case they all inherit, and these coto grant the means of access; to appear heirs are then called coparceners, or, for brecourt. Bract. fol. 20 b, 364 b. Fleta, lib. vity, parceners only. Litt. sect. 241, 242. 3, c. 9, § 24. Sui copiam non facere; to 2 Bl. Com. 187. By particular custom, as fail to appear to an action. Inst. 1. 26. 9. where lands descend, as in gavelkind, to all Fleta, lib. 6, c. 14, § 1. the males in equal degree, as sons, brothers, uncles, &c. Id. ibid. Litt. sect. 265. Co. Litt. 163 b. 1 Steph. Com. 319. 2 Crabb's Real Prop. 931, 932, § 2296. It resembles, in some respects, an estate in joint tenancy, but in others they materially differ. 1 Steph. Com. 319. In the United States, it is not distinguishable from tenancy in common. 4 Kent's Com. 367. Lord Coke observes that this tenancy is called in the ancient books adæquatio, and sometimes familia herciscunda, an estate to be divided. Co. Litt. 164 b. Both these terms, however, (the former in the feudal, the latter in the civil law,) seem to denote a process for dividing an estate, rather than the estate itself. See Adæquatio, Familia herciscunda. (378) Pr. 800. Copies not under seal are also, in England, of two kinds; sworn copies and office copies. A sworn or examined copy is a copy sworn (by the party intending to use it) to have been examined with the original record or paper, being first prepared by the officer having custody of it. An of fice copy is a copy made out by the officer in whose hands the original is, without being examined. Archb. N. Pract. 357. A certified copy, in the United States, is a copy certified to be such by the officer having the custody of the original, (being previously compared by him with such original,) and usually under seal, unless where the original is filed with the clerk of a court, and the copy is to be used in the same court. Sworn copies are not generally in use. **The word copy seems obviously derived from the Latin copia; the change from the classical (leave, liberty, opportunity,) to the law sense, (a transcript,) being very significantly shown in the use made of it by Bracton. Speaking of that description of deeds then called chartæ communes, (i. e. those in which both parties had a common interest, as involving a mutuality of obligation,) this author observes that where such a deed remained in the possession of the grantee, the grantor might, in a case where his interest was concerned, demand to have it shown to him; (donator, eo quod sua interest, petat a donatorio exhibitionem;) and that where there was a dispute or doubt between the parties as to the right of either, the grantee was bound to exhibit the instrument, (exhibeat instrumentum,) or he could have no action, &c. Bract. fol. 34. So, in case of a dispute between the grantor of a manor and the tenant or holder of it, the same author observes that the latter was bound to show his deed, (ostendere debet tenens chartam,) to make good his plea. Id. ibid. And he then proceeds to lay down the general rule, that whenever a party wished to make use of a private writing for his own benefit, in a judicial proceeding, he must allow his adversary to inspect and use it against him, (copiam faciet adversario suo contra se); but that a demandant had no right to require that instruments in the hands of the tenant should be shown him for the purpose of enabling him to count or declare, since a party was not bound to arm his adversary against himself, unless the instruments were common, (i. e. of the kind above described). Copiam facere, in this last quotation, is obviously the common classical expression signifying to impart a thing, to allow a privilege in, or respecting it. See Copia. Copiam facere scripturæ is to grant a party the privilege or opportunity of acquainting himself with the contents of a writing, which was done, as clearly appears from the context, by showing it to him. See Bract. fol. 389 b. Convenience, no doubt, suggested the practice, in most cases, of delivering a transcript instead of showing the original; and when the privilege (copia) came to assume this shape, it is easy to see how the word itself would gradually acquire a new and technical meaning, attaching, as a name of description, to the particular transcript so made use of. Hence, probably, was formed the Fr. copie, from which is obviously derived the English copy. See Transcript. So that, by this process, the classical facere copiam would ultimately become (as it did) good Law Latin, signifying to make a copy. Copiam concedere et liberare, (to grant and deliver a copy,) is the language of the old writ de copia libelli deliberanda. Reg. Orig. 58. And that this technical application of the word copia was by a very easy transition, will appear from a comparison of the copia libelli of this writ with the libri copia of Aulus Gellius in the following passage: Catonis verba huic prorsus commemtario indidissem, si libri copia fuisset id temporis cum, &c. A. Gell. Noct. Att. i. 23. The sense, it will be seen, is the same, whether the words "si libri copia fuisset" be translated "if I had had the means of consulting the book," or in the modern phrase, "if I had had a copy of the book." And see Traslado. COPYHOLD, Copihold. [L. Lat. tenura per copiam rotuli curiæ; Fr. tenure per copie de court rol.] A tenure or holding by copy of court-roll. A species of estate at will, or customary estate in England, the only visible title to which consists of the copies of the court-rolls, which are made out by the steward of the manor, on a tenant's being admitted to any parcel of land, or tenement belonging to the manor. 2 Bl. Com. 94, 95, 147. Co. Litt. 58 a. Litt. sect. 75. It is an estate at the will of the lord, yet such a will as is agreeable to the custom of the manor, which customs are preserved and evidenced by the rolls of the several courts baron, in which they are entered. 2 Bl. Com. 95. It is a base tenure, founded upon immemorial custom.* 2 Steph. Com. 43, 44. See 7 East, 299.
COPn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
The top of a thing; the head; a crest. [Obs.] Cop they used to call The tops of many hills. Dra A conical or conical-ended mass of coiled thread, yarn, or roving, wound upon a spindle, etc. A tube or quill upon which silk is wound. same as Merlon. A policeman. [Slang] Cop waste, a kind of cotton waste, composed chiefly
COPname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
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Abbreviation of ConocoPhillips.
copverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
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to capture or arrest someone | To obtain, to purchase (items including but not limited to drugs), to get hold of, to take. | To (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing. | To see and record a railway locomotive for the first time. | To steal. | To adopt. | To admit, especially to a crime or wrongdoing. | To recruit a prostitute into the stable. | To take (a look, glance, etc.).
copnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A police officer or prison guard.

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