cooper meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

cooper

noun

US /ˈkʊpɚ/ · /ˈkuːpə(ɹ)/

Etymology From coop + -er.

A craftsman who makes and repairs barrels and similar wooden vessels such as casks, buckets and tubs.

They were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 5, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

Obsolete A drink of half stout and half porter.

verb

Etymology From coop + -er.

Archaic To make and repair barrels etc.

Obsolete, Slang To forge or imitate (writing).

[…] though, owing to his forged signatures having been too often detected, he was declared to be "a duffer at coopering a monekur."1872, Augustus Mayhew, Paved with Gold, page 269:

Obsolete, Slang To intentionally injure (a racehorse) to spoil its chances of winning.

Every design that villainy could suggest was had recourse to in the hopes of nobbling Wild Dayrell; but never being left for an hour by either his trainer or jockey, he escaped the intended 'coopering', even when the lynchpins of the wheels of his van had been tampered with.1864, Baily's Magazine of Sports & Pastimes, volume 8, page 110:

Derived terms: broad cooper, cooperage, coopery, recooper, uncoopered, undercooper, wine cooper