cope [ME] Nowadays to cope with something is to manage or deal with it effectively, but the word used to mean ‘to meet in battle’ or ‘to come to blows’. Its source is the Latin word colpus ‘a blow’, which is also the root of coup [L18th], ‘a sudden seizure of power from a government’ often used in its French form coup d’état [M17th]. Coppice [LME], woodland where the trees have regularly been cut back, and its shortening copse [L16th] also go back to colpus, from the idea that they have been cut back with blows. The ecclesiastical cope [ME] goes back to Latin cappa, source of *cap.