Cop (To)

To catch [a fever, etc.]. To “get copped” is to get caught by the police. (Latin, capere, to take, etc.) A similar change of a into o is in cotched (caught).

“They thought I was sleepinʹ, ye know,

And they sed as Iʹd copped it oʹ Jim;

Well, it come like a bit of a blow,

For I watched by the deathbed of him.”

Sims: Dagonet Ballads (The Last Letter).

“ʹI shall cut this to-morrow, …” said the younger man. ‘Youʹll be copped, then,ʹ replied the other.”—T. Terrell: Lady Delmar.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.