A short form of ‘copper’, used in informal speech in both Britain and America to describe a policeman. ‘Listen, cop, I don’t know nuthin’,’ says a young American in Waterfront, by Budd Schulberg. The same speaker...

A cop is a slang term used to describe police, constables, sheriffs, prison guards and other law enforcement officers. The usage of the word "cop" to refer to law enforcement may have been derived from the verb cop, which means to take or seize and does...