Definition of "copper"

(uncountable) A reddish-brown, malleable, ductile metallic element with high electrical and thermal conductivity, symbol Cu, and atomic number 29.  examples

The reddish-brown colour/color of copper.  examples

(countable, dated) Any of various specialized items that are made of copper, where the use of copper is either traditional or vital to the function of the item.  quotations

1. (countable) A copper coin, typically of a small denomination, such as a penny.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers.

     1799, Benjamin Franklin, edited by John Bigelow, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, published 1868, page 255

   • "I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." ¶ "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. Then I ran away and sold papers in the streets, and anything else that I could pick up a few coppers by—except steal. […]."

     1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter II, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919

2. (UK, Australia, dated) A large pot, often used for heating water or washing clothes over a fire. In Australasia at least, it could also be a fixed installation made of copper, with a fire underneath and its own chimney. Generally made redundant by the advent of the washing machine.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • When the water in the copper boils, the arsenic and tartar, well pounded, is put into it, and kept boiling till the liquor is reduced to about half.

     1797, “Dyeing”, in Colin Macfarquhar, George Gleig, editors, Encyclopædia Britannica: or, A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature, Volume 6, Part 1 p.207

   • 'You had better mind you don't get up too early, and you mustn't put any fire under the copper before two o'clock.'

     1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 6

   • He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near the copper.

     1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 230

   • 'Vot game now she play?' he asked himself, as he distinguished his wife near one of the pig-scalding coppers.

     1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 254

   • The wet laundry's stove had a long vent in the ceiling which helped to release the steam from the coppers in which the clothes and bed linen were boiled.

     2000, Christopher Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century, page 266

(entomology) Any of various lycaenid butterflies with copper-coloured upperwings, especially those of the genera Lycaena and Paralucia.

Made of copper.  examples

Having the reddish-brown colour/color of copper.  quotations  examples

To sheathe or coat with copper.  examples

(slang, law enforcement) A police officer.