Coop.

/kuːp/ · noun

Meaning

A basket, pen or enclosure for birds or small animals..

Definitions by Sense

1. A basket, pen or enclosure for birds or small animals.
2. A wickerwork basket (kipe) or other enclosure for catching fish.
3. (figuratively, slang) A narrow place of confinement, a cage; a jail, a prison.
4. (obsolete) A barrel or cask for holding liquids.
5. An obstacle for a horse to jump over, shaped like an A-frame.
6. (transitive) To keep in a coop.
7. (transitive) To shut up or confine in a narrow space; to cramp.
8. (transitive, intransitive, politics, historical) To unlawfully confine one or more voters to prevent them from casting their ballots in an election.

Example Sentences

Poorly ventilated coops are likely to result in losses by suffocation, particularly during hot weather, when the coops are overcrowded. The bottom of the coop should be built solid of one-half-inch boards to prevent the birds' toes from sticking through and being injured.

"Well," said Calvin, "we could go over to the chicken coop this afternoon when all the hens are inside laying eggs. We might find some clues."

With this collection of 14 coop designs, our hope is to expand the definition of what a chicken coop is or could be. Surely, building more time-tested coop structures would be sufficient, and we love the traditional coops out there. […] How can chicken coops better serve users in the contemporary world? How can they look and function differently? What kinds of materials can be used? Can chicken coops be treated like a piece of outdoor furniture? Can chicken coops serve multiple purposes in a well-functioning small urban farm?

Falling in with a shoal of porpoises the vessel should be prepared with coops manufactured of copper wire, or other substance of great elasticity and strength; these coops to be lowered by blocks and pulleys in every direction round the vessel, and to be in the same manner hoisted when entered by the fish.

At a Court held 10th December, 1868, the Special Commissioners for English Fisheries made an order declaring to be legal, subject to certain alterations, a coop or fishing apparatus of the respondent, situated at Salmon Hall, near Workington, in the river Derwent, in the county of Cumberland, which the respondent claimed to use as legal. […] The said coop is a fishing-box or apparatus inserted in or forming part of the structure of a dam built across the river Derwent, […]

The rivers and estuaries of the country still abounded in fish, and the right of salmon-fishing by nets or "yairs" (coops) was jealously guarded by land-holders.

'Tis the cruel gripe, / That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts, / The hope of better things, the chance to win, / The wiſh to ſhine, the thirſt to be amus'd, / That at the found of Winter's hoary wing, / Unpeople all our counties, of ſuch herds, / Of flutt'ring, loit'ring, cringing, begging, looſe, / And wanton vagrants, as make London, vaſt / And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.

coop. A (gen., from ca. 1880, a country-town) prison: 1785, Sessions Papers of the Old Bailey, Sept., p. 1111, 'He has been in coop for a week'; […]

Synonyms for coop.

Antonyms for coop.

Related Words

Word Forms

• coops
• cooping
• cooped
• coup

Usage Notes

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