Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One that makes or repairs wooden barrels and tubs.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One whose occupation is the making of barrels, tubs, and other vessels formed of staves and hoops.
- noun [So called from the practice at breweries of allowing the coopers a daily portion of stout and porter. Cf.
porter , a malt liquor.] A popular London beverage, consisting half of stout and half of porter. - To do the work of a cooper; make barrels, hogsheads, casks, etc.
- To mend or put in order: as, to
cooper casks.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who makes barrels, hogsheads, casks, etc.
- transitive verb To do the work of a cooper upon.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
craftsman who makes and repairsbarrels and similarwooden vessels such ascasks ,buckets andtubs . - verb To make and repair barrels etc.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a craftsman who makes or repairs wooden barrels or tubs
- noun United States industrialist who built the first American locomotive; founded Cooper Union in New York City to offer free courses in the arts and sciences (1791-1883)
- verb make barrels and casks
- noun United States novelist noted for his stories of American Indians and the frontier life (1789-1851)
- noun United States film actor noted for his portrayals of strong silent heroes (1901-1961)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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He went through a moment of painful hesitation and nearly took up the glass and emptied the clear fragrant liquid down his throat, but he glanced at Vasili Andreevich, remembered his oath and the boots that he had sold for drink, recalled the cooper, remembered his son for whom he had promised to buy a horse by spring, sighed, and declined it.
Master and Man 2003
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Like his son, the cooper was a man of few words; but what he must have done at parting was to clap the boy on the shoulder, and say: "Now, go to it!"
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As was common enough in those days on American whaleships, nearly all the officers were relatives or connections by marriage, and were always ready to stand by the captain; in this instance the cooper was a brother of the second mate.
Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories 1898 Louis Becke 1884
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But he spent evening after evening with the cooper's family; to be sure, the cooper was a very intelligent man!
Married August Strindberg 1880
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"Nay, Mistress Priscilla, I was not dubbed cooper until I was a se'nnight old, or so."
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From him I discovered that he and a cooper were the only Danes residing here, and they, together with a cross-breed who did the double duty of priest and schoolmaster, constituted the officials of Cron-Prin's Islands.
Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, in the Years 1850-51 Sherard Osborn 1848
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(Oxford English Dictionary) [21.6] A cooper is a highly skilled "craftsman who makes and repairs wooden vessels formed of staves and hoops, as casks, buckets, tubs."
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I took heat for calling cooper a scumbag after he helped that young kid. driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
Latest Articles 2010
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This thing is nothing like the cooper, which is the reason BMW sells both.
Autoblog 2009
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A cooper is a tradesman who makes wooden vessels such as barrels, buckets and tubs.
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