C — Cool Tankard to Coq-a-l'ane (Part 1 of 3)

Cool Tankard (A) or Cool Cup. A drink made of wine and water, with lemon, sugar, and borage; sometimes also slices of cucumber.

Coon (A) means a racoon, a small American animal valued for its fur. It is about the size of a fox, and lodges in hollow trees.
   A gone coon. A person in a terrible fix; one on the verge of ruin. The coon being hunted for its fur is a “gone coon” when it has no escape from its pursuers. It is said that Colonel Crockett was one day out racoon-shooting in North America, when he levelled his gun at a tree where an “old coon” was concealed. Knowing the colonel's prowess, it cried out, in the voice of a man, “Hallo, there! air you Colonel Crockett? for if you air, I'll jist come down, or I know I am a gone 'coon.”
    Martin Scott, lieutenant-general of the United States, is said to have had a prior claim to this saying.

Cooper Half stout and half porter. The term arises from the practice at breweries of allowing the coopers a daily portion of stout and porter. As they do not like to drink porter after stout, they mix the two together.

Cooper A coop for wine bottles. The bottles lie in a slanting position in the coop, and may be transported in it from place to place. We find allusions to “six-bottle coopers” not unfrequently, i.e. coops or cases containing six bottles. Compare “hen-coops,” “cooped up,” etc. (Latin, cupa, a cask; our “cup.”)

“(Enter waiter with a cooper of wine.)
Waiter: Six bottles of wine for Corporal Toddy.”
O'Keeffe: Rogues All, iii. 4.

Cooper Do you want a cooper? This question is asked of those who have an order to visit the wine cellars of the London Docks. The “cooper” bores the casks and gives the visitor different wines to taste.

Cooper's Hill Near Runnymede and Egham. Both Denham and Pope have written in praise of this hill.

“If I can be to thee
A poet, thou Parnassus art to me.” Denham.

Coot A silly old coot. Stupid as a coot. The coot is a small water-fowl.
   Bald as a coot. The coot has a strong, straight, and somewhat conical bill, the base of which tends to push up the forehead, and there dilates, so as to form a remarkable naked patch.

Cop (A). A policeman.

Cop (A). A copperhead (q.v.).

Cop To throw, as cop it here. The word properly means to beat or strike, as to cop a shuttlecock or ball with a bat. (Greek, copto, to beat); but in Norfolk it means to “hull” or throw.

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 sleepin', ye know,
And they sed as I'd copped it o' Jim;
Well, it come like a bit of a blow,
For I watched by the deathbed of him.”
Sims: Dagonet Ballads (The Last Letter).

“ `I shall cut this to-morrow, ...” said the younger man. `You'll be copped, then,' replied the other.”- T. Terrell: Lady Delmar.

Copenhagen The Duke of Wellington's horse, on which he rode in the Battle of Waterloo, “from four in the morning till twelve at night.” It was a rich chestnut, 15 hands high. It was afterwards a pensioner in the paddocks of Strathfieldsaye. It died quite blind, in 1835, at the age of twenty-seven, and was buried with military honours. (See Horse .)