Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete spelling of copper.
  • noun A seller; a dealer.
  • noun A miner: so called from his working at a certain price or cope per ton or load of ore mined.
  • noun A kind of floating grog-shop, stocked with indifferent liquors, tobacco, etc., which accompanies or plies its trade among the North Sea fishing-fleets.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who copes.
  • noun UK A floating grog shop supplying the North Sea fishing industry.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

cope +‎ -er

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Examples

  • She was to sell the tobacco at a fixed price that just covered the cost, and undersold the "coper" by fifty per cent.

    A Labrador Doctor The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell Wilfred Thomason Grenfell 1902

  • But there is another type of vessel that trades with the "Lively Poll" and other ships of that fishing fleet -- the Dutch "coper", bringing goods to trade for fish, including tobacco and schnapps, for the Demon Drink is the ruination of many a good man.

    The Lively Poll A Tale of the North Sea 1859

  • Reader, the mode of dealing with the abominable "coper" traffic referred to by these men has at last happily been adopted, and the final blow has been dealt by the simple expedient of underselling the floating grog-shops in the article of tobacco.

    The Young Trawler 1859

  • Tobacco at 1 shilling 6 pence procured in the "coper," with, to some, its irresistible temptation to get drunk on vile spirits, is a greater evil than the procuring of the same weed at 1 shilling in a vessel all whose surroundings and internal arrangements are conducive to the benefit of soul and body.

    The Young Trawler 1859

  • She's a total "coper," marching off to think about big ideas at the Aspen Institute, hiking Machu Picchu and then, with her shoulder pads nestled safely in her pack, flying to North Carolina for an Outward Bound rock-climbing trip.

    SMITH Magazine Superfeed 2009

  • Lucy herself is seen neither as pitiable victim nor heroic coper: she is a liar, self-deceiver and ruthless exploiter of her mother's private wealth but also someone whose recovery hinges on a confrontation with truth.

    Knot of the Heart – review 2011

  • In those last couple of decades Elizabeth Taylor became a heroic coper with ill health, a supporter of good causes, and a vociferously loyal friend to, among others, Michael Jackson.

    Elizabeth Taylor remembered by Philip French | Feature 2011

  • It's the kind of schedule that might daunt lesser mortals, but Portas is nothing if not a coper.

    Mary Portas: high street superheroine 2010

  • Our politicals first had word of him last autumn at Ghuznee; he came over the Khyber disguised as an Afridi horse-coper, to Peshawar.

    Fiancée 2010

  • "There's this idea among high-functioning people that 'I'm a good coper,' and these symptoms suggest that you're not," she says.

    Stress So Bad It Hurts -- Really 2009

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