coop n.1
1. (also coup) a prison; a police station, thus v. coop, to imprison.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Proceedings Old Bailey 1111/2: He has been in coop for a week. | |
| ‘Lady Barrymore’s Lamentation in Quod’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 18: Tho’ oft captive I’ve been coop’d / Within this prison-wall. | |
| London Misc. 3 Mar. 58, col. 3: I don’t think that’s no little let-down for a cove as has been tip-topper in his time, and smelt the insides of all the coops in the three kingdoms [F&H]. | |
| Dick Temple III 11: You say that you have been in the coop as many times as I have. | |
 | Indianapolis Sentinel (IN) 13 Apr. 8/1: There have been fifteen bars in the roof of the jail coop cut by prisoners attempting to escape. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Fort Worth Gaz. (TX) 23 Nov. 2/2: He was at first placed in the coop called ’city prison’. | |
| ‘Red Mike’ in Sandburrs 60: Dey takes dad to d’ coop. | |
| The Web in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 62: They got me and this time I went to the coop fur five years. | |
| ‘The Ghost’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 63/1: They’d have the sheriff [...] stick you in the coop. | |
| Let Me Live 184: If you don’t let him out of the coop by six o’clock this evening, I am coming down to the police station and give you wise guys all the hell you want. | |
| Mating Season 34: [He] is in the coop for fourteen days. | |
| Playback 11: Been in the coop. | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 795: coop – A police station. | |
| Gonif 38: Remember Dago punk, I’m still King of the Coup. | |
| Prison Sl. 3: Coop A prison. |
2. (US Und.) a hideout.
| Kitchener’s Mob 116: However it [i.e. a sniper hide] wasn’t such a ‘dusty little coop,’ and he had a good field of fire. | |
| (ref. to late 19C) Amer. Madam (1981) 192: The boys were all paid off, the loot was in the coop, hidden. | |
| In The Cut 63: I have many more words for the dictionary [...] coop, hideout. |
3. (US police) a place for a patrolling police officer to take an unauthorized break.
| (con. 1900s) Behind The Green Lights 138: I learned that the Deaf and Dumb Asylum on Throggs Neck was a ‘coop’ for the mounted men. | |
| Cop Remembers 135: I had a key to the side door of John Hoffman’s grocery store and on late tour it was a great coop. | |
| in N.Y. Times 20 Oct. 34/1: Any spot that takes a policeman out of the rain is a coop, or a heave. | |
| Behind the Shield 209: There is a popular myth in police society that many arrests are made coming from the ‘coop’ (a favorite location where a policeman sometimes goes to relax). | |
| Union Dues (1978) 367: He’s in there with the guy who takes your quarter, drinking. Cooping they call it in the city, in New York. We disturbed his coop. |
4. one’s home.
| Deadwood Dick in Beadle’s Half Dime Library I:1 80/1: I’ll take you over to my coop, and you can lay low [...] You’ll have to promise me one thing, however, ere I admit you as a member of my household. | |
| Wash. Post 15 Jan. 4/3: The young man of tender years [...] has a vocabulary which would put Webster to shame. Home is ‘the coop’ [...]. | |
| ‘That Funny Little Bob-Tailed Coat’ [monologue] Someone shouted, ‘Take him home and put him in his coop’ . | |
| You Should Worry cap. 1: Mr. Schwartz has a fad for collecting apartment houses. He owns the largest assortment of People Coops in the city. | |
| ‘Chicken Soup’ 🎵 After the club your chick is in my coop / Sucking and slurping like chicken soup. |
5. any form of place, e.g. a nightclub, a bar.
| How the Other Half Lives 64: Here is a ‘flat’ of ‘parlor’ and two pitch-dark coops called bedrooms. | |
| [ | | Skidoo! 48: We were sentenced to live in one of those 8 x 9 Harlem people-coops]. |
| Types from City Streets 311: When we get together in the coop we have our laws. | |
| Broadway Melody 2: In an adjoining coop, a fat radio prima donna is bawling out an arranger. | |
| Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 13: How long’s this coop been a dinge joint? |
6. a particular cell in a prison.
| Barney Google [comic strip] 55: What about that guy in the first coop? | |
| Let Tomorrow Come 261: But if only the nights would go easier [...] Some of them are longer than they were when you were in your coop. | |
| Sex in Prison 92: One of the ‘screws’ came running up and took me out of that coop and put me into another one. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
7. (US Und.) a solitary confinement cell.
| et al. DAUL 49/1: Coop. 1. A police station or local jail. 2. (P) A punishment cell; any cell. | |
| Forgive Me, Killer (2000) 5: It was hot and close in that coop. |
In phrases
1. (orig. US) to leave, poss. suddenly.
| Columbian Register 2 Apr. 4: A tin pedlar has cleared the coop, hook and line, bob and sinker, without being able to square his accounts! | |
| Hamilton Eve Jrnl (OH) 3 May 2/4: As they flew the coop, the gang sent up an awful wail. | |
| Chimmie Fadden Explains 182: Dey bote jumped up, real saucy, and flew de coop widout so much as saying ‘s’long’. | |
| Toothsome Tales Told in Sl. 68: He used to accumulate a mild jag, butt in to see Maxine [...] then he’d fly the coop. | |
| Watch Yourself Go By 410: Air yu fixin’ to fly the coop? | |
| Gay-cat 201: I wonder where he’s gone to. Has he flown the coop, or is he still hidin’ about some’eres? | |
| ‘Down in the Mohawk Valley’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 51: And then things all went blooey and they throwed me in the can, / And Nell jumped the coop with a barber and maw ’loped with a travelin’ man. | |
| World to Win 63: Flew the coop when he was fifteen. | |
| Chicago Sun 26 Dec. 38/2: The first thing you know they will all fly the coop [DA]. | |
| Sweet Thursday (1955) 127: Might make her fly the coop. | |
| There Must Be a Pony! 218: My mother had flown the coop. | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 203: By the time he’d finished lushing it up and got back to the hospital, his ‘patient’ had flown the coop. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Bodhrán Makers 318: Only one, Father, [...] The other has fled the coop. | |
| Homeboy 139: What’s the matter, pussy . . . One bent chick flying the coop? | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 72/1: fly the coop v. to obtain a transfer to another prison. | |
| Chicken (2003) 39: Doesn’t sound like pleasure to me. Makes me want to fly the chicken coop. | |
| ‘Not Even a Mouse’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] ‘Listen—I didn't fly the coop once you told me that you lied’. |
2. (US Und.) to escape from prison.
| Eve. World (NY) 23 Nov. 5/2: Mary Ann Tattler’s husband [...] escaped from the Charities and Correction [prison]. ‘How did you get out?’ she cried.’ I flew de coop, Mary Ann, I flew de coop’. | |
| Eve. Bulletin (Maysville, MY) 8 May 1/3: Leonard Johnson, who was breaking rock to pay a jail sentence, ‘flew the coop’ Monday. | |
| Bisbee Dly Rev. (AZ) 29 Aug. 2/3: [headline] Three Jail Birds Fly the Coop. | |
| Ward Co. Indep. (Minot, ND) 7 Feb. 5/2: Lila Haggerty ‘Flew the Coop’ [...] She had been sentenced to serve 30 days in the county jail for running a bawdy house. | |
| We Are the Public Enemies 50: Filling in his time on the outside [...] against the day when brother Clyde would fly the coop again. | |
| Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 132: Look who done flown the coop! Look who done broke out of jail, you-all! |
3. (US) to lose control, to lose one’s temper.
| Honey, Honey, Miss Thang 210: I flew the coop. I just did. I called him every damn name there was in the book. |
(US Und.) to escape from any form of confinement, not necessarily prison.
| Maui News (Wailuku, HI) 26 Dec. 2/1: We would have hopped the coop long ago had we been unfortunate residents of Kula. | |
| Long Good-Bye 112: So when he hops the coop again and don’t come back for quite a piece, naturally we check our files for a lead. |