Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A thicket or grove of small trees or shrubs, especially one maintained by periodic cutting or pruning to encourage suckering, as in the cultivation of cinnamon trees for their bark.
  • intransitive verb To cut or prune (a tree) in making or maintaining a coppice.
  • intransitive verb To grow as a coppice after cutting. Used of trees.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as copse.
  • noun A wood or thicket formed of trees or bushes of small growth, or consisting of underwood or brushwood; especially, in England, a wood cut at certain times for fuel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A grove of small growth; a thicket of brushwood; a wood cut at certain times for fuel or other purposes. See copse.
  • transitive verb (Forestry) To cause to grow in the form of a coppice; to cut back (as young timber) so as to produce shoots from stools or roots.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A grove of small growth; a thicket of brushwood; a wood cut at certain times for fuel or other purposes, typically managed to promote growth and ensure a reliable supply of timber. See copse.
  • verb To manage a wooded area sustainably, as a coppice.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a dense growth of bushes

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Old French copeiz; see copse.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French copeiz ("a cut-over forest"), from presumed Late Latin colpaticium ("having the quality of being cut"), from *colpare ("to cut, strike"), from Medieval Latin colpus ("a blow"), from Vulgar Latin colapus, from Latin colaphus ("a cuff, box on the ear"), from Ancient Greek  (kolaphos).

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Examples

  • While in coppice loud shrilleth and trilleth Hazár,

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • On one side of the coppice was a meadow which belonged to a fisherman named

    The Birthright Joseph Hocking 1898

  • The neighbourhood, however, is interesting enough on account of the curious aqueducts for supplying the town with water, and the Mercede forest which, in D'Urville's opinion, might more justly be called a coppice, for it contains nothing but shrubs and ferns.

    Celebrated Travels and Travellers Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century Jules Verne 1866

  • This grove appeared of that kind usually termed a coppice or copse -- such as may be often observed in English parks.

    Ran Away to Sea Mayne Reid 1850

  • This ability makes them candidates for management under a sort of "coppice" rotation.

    4. Management 1984

  • The tract thus characterised was about five or six acres in superficial extent; and surrounded by the same kind of coppice that covered most of the face of the country.

    Bruin The Grand Bear Hunt Mayne Reid 1850

  • “Yes, Holly says that the coppice was my grandfather’s favourite spot.”

    Swan Song 2004

  • The Mirage itself looms above the coppice of trees like a giant open book.

    Camo Girl Kekla magoon 2011

  • The Mirage itself looms above the coppice of trees like a giant open book.

    Camo Girl Kekla magoon 2011

  • The Mirage itself looms above the coppice of trees like a giant open book.

    Camo Girl Kekla magoon 2011

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