Etymology 1578, from coppice, by contraction, originally meaning “small wood grown for purposes of periodic cutting”.
1
A coppice: an area of woodland managed by coppicing (periodic cutting near stump level).
2
Any thicket of small trees or shrubs, coppiced or not.
Agrimonie groweth in places not tylled, in rough stone mountaynes, in hedges and Copses, and by waysides.1578, Henry Lyte, transl., A niewe Herball or Historie of Plantes, translation of Cruydeboeck by Rembert Dodoens, page 57:
The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Among the woods and copses lose themselves,1798, [William Wordsworth], “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], →OCLC, page 202:
2 more examples
Three thundercloven thrones of oldest snow, / Stood sunsetflushed: and, dewed with showery drops, / Upclomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 109:
Striking the highway beyond the little copse she skirted the dark iron palings enclosing Hare.1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth (hardback edition), p19