copper(俚)警察

【使用地区】：英国

【释义】：

British slang(with some American use)for a police officer．The term doesn’t derive from the large copper buttons worn by members of the first London police force，nor any other police officer．Neither was it originally an acronym meaning constabulary of police or anything similar．Cop can be traced back to the verb cop，which was first recorded in the sense of“to catch or capture”in early eighteenth—century England．It took about a century and a half，but the verb was eventually adopted as a name for a policeman，who，of course，caught or captured crooks．See also bobby．

英国俚语，意为“警察”，美国也偶有使用。该词不是源于第一支伦敦警察队员或其他警察所钉的大铜扣，也不是与警察意义相似的其它词语的缩略词。Cop源于与其词形相同的动词，在18世纪初的英格兰，其最初的意思是“抓，捕”。大约过了150年，这个动词才最后作“抓捕坏人的警察”的名称。参见bobby。