copper: [OE] A major source of copper in the ancient world was the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, so the Romans called it cyprium aes ‘metal of Cyprus’. This became cuprum in late Latin, from which it was borrowed into prehistoric West and North Germanic as *kupar, source of Old English coper. (Copper the slang term for ‘policeman’ [19] is simply the agent noun formed from the verb cop ‘seize’, which probably comes via Old French caper from Latin capere ‘seize, take’, source of English capture.)
copper (n.1)
malleable metallic element, Old English coper, from Proto-Germanic *kupar (cognates: Middle Dutch koper, Old Norse koparr, Old High German kupfar), from Late Latin cuprum, contraction of Latin Cyprium (aes) "Cyprian (metal)," after Greek Kyprios "Cyprus" (see Cyprus).
Latin aes originally was "copper," but this was extended to its alloy with tin, bronze, and as this was far more extensively used than pure copper, the word's primary sense shifted to the alloy and a new word evolved for "copper," from the Latin form of the name of the island of Cyprus, where copper was mined. Aes passed into Germanic (which originally did not distinguish copper from its alloys) and became English ore. In Latin, aes was the common word for "cash, coin, debt, wages" in many figurative expressions. Chemical symbol Cu is from cuprum.
copper (n.2)
"policeman," 1846; agent noun from cop (v.).
双语例句
1. The combination of sex and treachery proved a copper-bottomed circulation booster.
事实证明，性和背叛的话题结合起来无疑大大增加了发行量。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Copper, brass and aluminium are separated and remelted for reuse.
铜、黄铜和铝被分门别类重新熔化以进行再利用。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Miners in Zambia's northern copper belt have gone on strike.
赞比亚北部铜矿带的矿工已经罢工了。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The government pre-empted a threatened strike at the state-owned copper company.
政府先发制人，制止了国有铜矿公司可能发生的一次罢工。
来自柯林斯例句
5. We tried to grow some copper sulphate crystals with our children.