Monday, June 22, 2009

copse

copse \KOPS\, noun:

A thicket or grove of small trees.

A lit window shone from between the trees below them, then vanished again as the car dipped over a ditch and passed through a copse.
-- Kate Bingham, Mummy's Legs
Among the mountains, hills, streams, waterfalls, and little copses, the child rejoiced in "savouring the delights of freedom" that stimulated his boyish dreams and reveries.
-- Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet
They sang freely in the copses and thickets round Bohain, and in the ruins of the mediaeval castle where he played as a boy.
-- Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse

Copse derives from Old French copeiz, "a thicket for cutting," from coper, couper, "to cut." It is related to coupon, at root "the part that is cut off."

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