copse

1578, from coppice, by contraction, originally meaning “small wood grown for purposes of periodic cutting”.

• IPA^(key): /kɒps/
• Rhymes: -ɒps
• Homophone: cops

copse (plural copses)

1. A thicket of small trees or shrubs.
   • 1798, William Wordsworth, Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, lines 9–15 (for syntax):

     The day is come when I again repose

     Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

     These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts,

     Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

     Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

     ’Mid groves and copses.

   • 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth (hardback edition), p19:

     Striking the highway beyond the little copse she skirted the dark iron palings enclosing Hare.

• coppice

• bush, bushes, forest, mott, orchard
• stand, thicket, wood, woods

copse (third-person singular simple present copses, present participle copsing, simple past and past participle copsed)

1. (transitive, horticulture) To trim or cut.
2. (transitive, horticulture) To plant and preserve.

• -scope, OPSEC, Pecos, copes, scope, μ-scope, μscope