We hear it all the time in true crime podcasts, headlines and neighborhood chatter: Call the cops. The cops showed up. Good cop, bad cop. But have you ever stopped to investigate where the word cop actually comes from and why we use it to refer to a police officer? The term is so common that its true meaning has practically gone undercover in our everyday language.
Naturally, I couldn’t just let this linguistic mystery walk free. So I put on my word-detective hat and tracked down Michael Adams, PhD, professor of English and linguistics at Indiana University. If anyone could crack the case of cop‘s origin, I knew it would be him. Read on for the most arresting truth of all.
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Where do most people think the word cop came from?
As is the case with many words, there are a few commonly believed theories about its origin story—and then there’s the truth. Let’s break it down.
The acronym theory
One long-circulating idea claims cop is an acronym for “Constable on Patrol.” It sounds tidy, official and satisfying. But it’s also completely false. “Constable was not a term that was used for police officers at the time,” says Adams. “It’s a typical little folk etymology, that anything that can be an acronym people imagine is an acronym.” But this one isn’t.
The badge theory
Another popular explanation is that cop comes from copper, as in the shiny metal, atomic number 29. The idea is that police officers once wore copper badges or buttons, and people simply started calling them coppers. Alas, that’s another myth. “Metal has nothing to do with it,” Adams says.
What’s the actual origin of cop?
Experts trace the word cop back several centuries, and its journey is surprisingly linguistic rather than cultural. Here’s how it evolved into the short-and-sweet term we use today.
The original verb
The term stems from the Old French caper, per the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). “Cop is a verb that means ‘to seize,’ or when there are people to do it, ‘arrest,'” says Adams.
By the mid-19th century, the verb to cop appeared in English slang with the same meaning: “to grab or catch something.” According to Adams, the verb cop came up in an 1846 book called The Swell’s Night Guide about the nightlife of London. “And the language that it captures is below the radar up until that point,” he says.
From verb to noun
Cop then evolved into a noun: copper. “Somebody who copped other people was a copper,” says Adams. It’s similar to how we use catcher to mean “one who catches” in baseball, or baker for “one who bakes.”
“I don’t think anybody doubts that while copper is attested first in 1838 [per the OED], the verb cop precedes that, even though the first evidence we have for it in print is 1846,” he says.
The familiar noun
By 1858, people were using cop to refer to a uniformed police officer in the United States, according to the OED. “Cop, the noun, is just short for copper, the person who cops, or arrests, them,” says Adams. “It only takes a couple of decades, and boom—it’s cop again.”
So to recap the journey: We went from the verb cop to the noun copper to the noun cop.
Why did everyone start using this word?
“Copper is very English,” says Adams. “I think that by the time it got to America, the origin was probably obscure.” (It wasn’t unheard of, though. He points to the 1949 film White Heat, in which James Cagney’s gangster character says, upon learning he’s been betrayed by one of his own, “A copper. A copper. How do you like that, boys?”)
“Cop is very much an American term for the policeman,” he says, noting that it is also a recognized term internationally, and it’s probably the oldest and most popular slang term for police.
Though cop was well-established in police blotters and newspapers, it truly took off in the early 20th century with the rise of pulp detective fiction, crime serials and eventually Hollywood. The word was short, gritty and perfectly suited for dialogue. It sounded less formal than officer and more natural in the mouths of characters on the street. So it showed up often in hard-boiled novels (like 1940’s Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler), noir films (including 1958’s Touch of Evil) and TV shows (such as Dragnet in the ’50s).
Somewhere along the way, people stopped thinking about cop‘s literal meaning—”to seize”—and just accepted it as an everyday word for a police officer.
Did police officers initially like this word?
For much of its history, cop was often seen as dismissive or derogatory, according to Dictionary.com. Formal references to policemen or officers were preferred, especially in official contexts.
But as with many slang words, time softened the edges. Most police officers are just fine with it in contemporary use, though it can still sound impolite in certain settings, depending on tone and intent.
What are other words for cop?
The English language has produced a surprising number of nicknames for police officers. Here are a few.
- Bobby: British slang dating back to the 1830s, the term is named after Sir Robert Peel, who established London’s Metropolitan Police.
- Constable: The official term in the U.K., constable traces back to the Latin comus stabuli (“count of the stable”), referring to those who kept order.
- Flatfoot: This American slang from the early 1900s pokes fun at patrol officers who walked long beats.
- Fuzz: First appearing in 1929 but popularized in the 1960s counterculture, the slang term has unknown origins; it may refer to the soft felt hats officers wore.
- The Heat or The Law: Popular in noir and crime fiction, both terms are slangy, evocative ways to reference police presence.
- Five-0: The slang term comes from the TV series Hawaii Five-0, a police procedural that released in 1968.
- Pig: A derogatory term used throughout the 19th century, pig is still used today as an insulting synonym for cop.
- Po-po: This American slang was popularized by West Coast rappers in the ’90s; some linguists think it comes from repeating the po in police.
Cop may sound ordinary now, but it’s a word with a long rap sheet. I think this case is officially closed.
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Sources:
- Michael Adams, professor of English and linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington; phone interview, Oct. 28, 2025
- Oxford English Dictionary: “Cop”
- Online Etymology Dictionary: “Cop”
- Dictionary.com: “Cop”
- Los Angeles Times: “CBS explains why it’s ‘Hawaii Five-0″ and not ‘Hawaii-Five-O'”
- Online Etymology Dictionary: “Pig”
- The Straight Dope: “Why are the police called cops, pigs, or the fuzz?”
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