Etymology From cop + -ish (suffix meaning ‘being like, similar to, typical of’, forming adjectives from nouns).
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US, Slang Characteristic of or resembling a cop (“police officer”).
“Are you a policeman?” Conroy said. I gave him my most coppish deadpan stare.2002, Robert B[rown] Parker, chapter 30, in Widow’s Walk, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN, page 136:
"I know I'm going to sound suspicious and very policelike—" / "You're allowed to sound coppish … it's in your DNA," Laura assured him.2011, Holly Jacobs [pseudonym; Holly Fuhrmann], chapter 5, in A Father’s Name (Harlequin SuperRomance), Toronto, Ont.: Harlequin, →ISBN, page 106:
And it was early morning, and the world was moist, when the crystal-gazer's husband, a freak in knickerbockers with an open coppish and a sabbath gamp, came over the stones outside his house to meet the holy travellers.a. 1954 (date written), Dylan Thomas, “The Holy Six”, in Adventures in the Skin Trade (A New Directions Paperbook; no. 183), New York, N.Y.: New Directions Publishing Corporation, published 1969, →ISBN, page 129: