copper
n. countablen. a police officer. This is a very common word in British English, but it is not formal.
n. a police officer. Informal in register and primarily used in British English; derived from the verb 'cop', meaning to seize or capture.
The copper told the crowd to move back.
He saw a copper standing on the corner and decided to ask for directions to the station.
While the detective preferred a more professional tone, the local residents usually referred to him as a copper when discussing the investigation in the pub.
The noun is inherited from Middle English coper, copper (“copper ore; copper metal; bronze”), from Old English coper, copor (“copper”), from Late Latin cuprum (“copper”), a contraction of Latin aes Cyprium (literally “Cyprian brass or copper”), ultimately from Ancient Greek Κῠ́προς (Kŭ́pros, “Cyprus”) (a major source of copper during the Near East’s Bronze Age), from the name of a Northwest Semitic goddess from the root כ־ב־ר/ك ب ر (k b r) (“related to being big, large; great; or old”). Doublet of kobo. The adjective is from an attributive use of the noun. The verb is also derived from the noun. cognates * Dutch koper (“copper”) * German Kupfer (“copper”) * Icelandic kopar (“copper”)
The noun is probably derived from cop (“(informal, dated) to arrest or capture (someone)”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns), although cop is attested slightly later. The verb is derived from the noun.
From cop (“ball of thread wound on to a spindle in a spinning machine”) + -er (suffix denoting things relating to the words to which the suffix is attached to).