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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.
35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL4 source sections across 1 headword matching “Cop”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
copEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Uncertain. Perhaps from Middle English *coppen, *copen, from Old English copian (“to plunder; pillage; steal”); or possibly from Middle French caper (“to capture”), from Latin capiō (“to seize, grasp”); or possibly from Dutch kapen (“to seize, hijack”), from Old Frisian kāpia (“to buy”), whence West Frisian keapje, Saterland Frisian koopje, North Frisian koopi, kuupe. Compare also Middle English copen (“to buy”), from Middle Dutch copen.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗copEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Short for copper (“police officer”), itself from the verb cop (“to lay hold of”) above, in reference to arresting criminals. An erroneous folk etymology derives it from the acronym “Constable On Patrol” (C.O.P.).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗copEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
From Middle English coppe, from Old English *coppe, as in ātorcoppe (“spider”, literally “venom head”), from Old English copp (“top, summit, head”), from Proto-West Germanic *kopp, from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, round vessel, head”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to bend, curve”). Cognate with Middle Dutch koppe, kobbe (“spider”). More at cobweb.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗copEnglish (en) · Etymology 4Source text
From Middle English cop, coppe, from Old English cop, copp, from Proto-West Germanic *kopp, from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, basin, round object”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew-. Cognate with Dutch kop, German Kopf.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
These are spelling matches, not a claim of identical senses or agreement. Historical accounts retain their own editions and limits; none is automatically promoted into reviewed ancestry.
Chambers (1908)
1908- CopEnglish · e-37683-5994
Cop, kop, n. a conical ball of thread on a spindle—also Cop′pin: (obs.) a top or head of anything.—adj. Copped, rising to a cop or head. [A.S. cop, copp.]
Read the full source record → - CopEnglish · e-37683-5995
Cop, kop, v.t. (slang) to capture.—ns. Cop, Cop′per (slang), a policeman.
Read the full source record →
016
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
Old Norse masculine noundossier summary
fjándi
Old Norse fjándi is a masculine noun whose inherited shape still exposes a prehistoric agent formation. Cleasby and Vigfússon compare Gothic fiands, Old English feond, German Feind, Swedish fiende, and Danish fjende, identify the nd as participial, and gloss the older formation as properly a hater. They then distinguish the ordinary enemy sense from a post-Christian fiend development. The University of Copenhagen Dictionary of Old Norse Prose supplies 222 citations and six semantic zones: enemy or opponent; devil, monster, or demon; evil spirit; pagan god; the Devil or Satan; and a derogatory term for a hated or bewitched person, animal, or object. Lexicon Poeticum independently exposes 49 poetic records, including source-reported tenth-century enemy uses and later Christian fiend uses, while warning that its concordance and dates require checking. The noun therefore does not possess one timeless true meaning: an inherited lexicalized hater became an ordinary enemy word, and the branch later accumulated several demonic and derogatory senses. The displayed pronunciation is an editorial normalized approximation, not recorded historical audio. No underlying manuscript object is claimed as directly inspected in this dossier.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old Dutch masculine noundossier summary
fīunt
Old Dutch fīunt is the normalized headword behind a twenty-six-occurrence historical-dictionary record for enemy or opponent. ONW classifies the noun as synchronically unsegmented but says it was originally the present participle of the verb corresponding to Old High German fīēn and Gothic fijan, a verb no longer known in Dutch. Its frequency table preserves six case-number cells: nominative and genitive singular plus nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative plural. Those are not a complete paradigm. The article displays twenty representative location blocks after warning that locations in the semantic profile have been reduced. Most early Wachtendonck Psalms material is linguistically dated 901–1000 but survives in copies dated 1595–1605, circa 1598, or 1701–1800; no tenth-century manuscript object was inspected. One dfiunt or fiunt gloss aligned with Latin diabolus is textually disputed, and one Groningen psalm gloss is explicitly assigned to Old Frisian by the dictionary. This dossier therefore treats fīunt as a nominal fossil with a partially preserved inflectional record, not as a productive Old Dutch participle or a complete transparent paradigm.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old Norse noun, chiefly neuterdossier summary
hatr
An Old Norse noun for hatred, enmity, or spite. The University of Copenhagen Dictionary of Old Norse Prose gives the main neuter entry 54 citations, while a separately analyzed masculine entry has only one citation and is flagged as possibly an elementary error. The neuter corpus also contains one cautiously proposed mockery or scorn sense aligned with Latin irrisio. A c.1150-1200 manuscript visibly preserves Hatr in a line ONP transcribes Hatr hafa þeir engla and aligns with Latin Odium. The reviewed ancestry joins the Germanic *hatiz- family, preserves the disputed *ḱh₂d-es- and *ḱeh₂d- comparison, and then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
rí
The Old Irish word for a king, with genitive ríg, inherited from Proto-Celtic *rīx-s in the Indo-European king branch.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Dutch masculine noundossier summary
vijand
The ordinary Dutch noun for an enemy or opponent descends through Middle Dutch viant or vient and Old Dutch fīunt or fīant from a Germanic present-participial formation: literally the hating one. ONW counts twenty-six Old Dutch records and says the corresponding hate verb is no longer known in Dutch; VMNW counts 407 thirteenth-century records across enemy, Devil, and monster senses. Several Dutch etymologists propose that the medieval use for the Devil helped preserve the word’s full ending, unlike vriend, but they mark that explanation as possible or probable rather than demonstrated. The earliest Old Dutch Devil reading is itself textually disputed, and the Wachtendonck Psalms witnesses are later copies, not directly inspected tenth-century objects.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
étymologie
The French word for the study or historical explanation of word origins, attested in medieval forms long before its modern scientific scope stabilized.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗020
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
No reviewed record in this collection contains “cop.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
0316
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is the be- in betroth the verb be?
No. It is the historical prefix bi- or be-, related to Old English bi- or be- and bī “by, near,” not the copular verb.
resolvedboundaryposition text
Is the grass called chess part of the game family?
No connection is asserted. Merriam-Webster labels the grass-name origin unknown.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does the 960 poetic date identify the oldest manuscript token?
No. It is a source-reported composition date. Surviving manuscript copies may be later, and none is directly inspected here.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does folio 152r prove the earliest use of frēond?
No. The directly inspected object proves one inflected form in one manuscript witness. It is not a birth certificate for the lexeme or the poem.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Do the 901–1000 labels identify surviving tenth-century manuscript objects?
No. ONW pairs those language-period dates with much later copy labels, including 1595–1605, circa 1598, and 1701–1800.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Were any underlying manuscript objects directly inspected for this dossier?
No. This review inspected the ONW article and its expanded source-reported records, not the Wachtendonck Psalms copies, Leiden Willeram codex, Groningen gloss object, or rhymed-text witnesses.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does the Cotton manuscript date equal the Heliand composition date?
No. Biblissima dates the copy to the middle or second half of the tenth century; the Heliand work itself is earlier.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Can hatōn be pinned to one exact birthplace?
No. The Heliand’s poetic place of origin is unknown, the Munich manuscript is cataloged with Corvey, the Cotton witness was copied in England, and the gloss object remains unresolved.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does the representative year 875 prove a first use of heti?
No. The Heliand work is earlier than the Munich copy, and other witnesses have distinct or unresolved object dates. The numeric year only positions a second-half ninth-century manuscript.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Do the manuscript dates prove a first known use?
No. The Heliand work predates both copies, and the surviving witnesses are transmission objects rather than the adjective's origin event.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Are the 901–1000 Wachtendonck Psalms forms directly inspected tenth-century manuscript tokens?
No. ONW labels the records with much later copy dates, including 1595–1605 and circa 1598. This review inspected the lexical corpus record, not an original tenth-century object.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did Dutch vijand undergo the same enemy-to-demon replacement as English fiend?
No. Dutch retained ordinary enemy or opponent as the central modern sense. The Devil branch is historical; English fiend developed a different modern semantic center.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 4
RANK 47GRADE Aranked reveal
The Old Dutch enemy noun outlived the hate verb that created it.
ONW counts twenty-six fīunt occurrences across six attested case-number cells, yet classifies the noun as synchronically unsegmented and says the corresponding hate verb is no longer known in Dutch. Comparative evidence reconstructs the noun as an old present-participial formation: the hating one. The grammar therefore preserves a fossil in nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative records after Dutch lost the living verb that once made the formation transparent. Six cells are evidence, not a complete paradigm; the early Psalms records survive in later copies; and the lone Devil gloss is disputed.
RANK 59GRADE A-ranked reveal
Old Norse hatr has a 54-to-1 grammar problem.
The University of Copenhagen’s Dictionary of Old Norse Prose separates a 54-citation neuter noun from a one-citation masculine analysis—and flags the lone masculine assignment as possibly an elementary error. A directly inspected c.1150-1200 manuscript visibly preserves Hatr, but a visible token cannot settle gender by itself. The reveal is not that Old Norse had two equally secure hate nouns; it is that rigorous lexicography preserves the fracture instead of hiding it.
RANK 110GRADE Acontrarian claim
Irish rí and Latin rēx are cousins, not copies.
Old Irish rí and genitive ríg descend from Proto-Celtic *rīx-s and *rīg-os, while Latin rēx follows the parallel Italic branch.
RANK 162GRADE Aranked reveal
Regal and royal are two arrivals from one king adjective.
The English paths differ, but both reach Latin rēgālis and rēx. Their synonymy reflects shared ancestry, not one modern word copied from the other.
0412
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary22 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — fjándi, masculine noun
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2010
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary20 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — frǽndi, masculine noun
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2010
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary10 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — fjá, poetic verb
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2010
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary10 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — hata, verb
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2023
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary8 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — ²hatr, neuter noun
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2025
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗research database8 CLAIM LINKS
Lexicon Poeticum — hata, verb
Lexicon Poeticum · Skaldic Project editors
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗research database7 CLAIM LINKS
Lexicon Poeticum — fjándi, noun masculine, enemy or devil
Lexicon Poeticum · Skaldic Project editors
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary4 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — ¹hatr, masculine analysis
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2015
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗research database4 CLAIM LINKS
Lexicon Poeticum — fjá, verb
Lexicon Poeticum · Skaldic Project editors
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗lexical corpus record4 CLAIM LINKS
ONP citation — hata in Ragnars saga loðbrókar 136
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors · Olsen edition / 2023
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary3 CLAIM LINKS
A Malayalam and English Dictionary — māṅṅa
Hermann Gundert / 1872
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗digitized primary source3 CLAIM LINKS
AM 674 a 4°, Bókin dýra — manuscript record and images
Arnamagnæan Collection · Dictionary of Old Norse Prose · Handrit.is / 2026
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗050
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “cop.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.