noun

• (figuratively, slang) A narrow place of confinement, a cage; a jail, a prison.
  "'Tis the cruel gripe, / That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts, / The hope of better things, the chance to win, / The wiſh to ſhine, the thirſt to be amus'd, / That at the found of Winter's hoary wing, / Unpeople all our counties, of ſuch herds, / Of flutt'ring, loit'ring, cringing, begging, looſe, / And wanton vagrants, as make London, vaſt / And boundless as it is, a crowded coop."
• (obsolete) A barrel or cask for holding liquids.
  "COOP. n. ſ. [kuype, Dutch.] 1. A barrel; a veſſel for the preſervation of liquids."

verb

• (transitive) To keep in a coop.
  "Generally, and dependent on situation, and the disposition of the hen, there is no necessity for cooping the brood beyond two or three days, but they may be confined as occasion requires or suffered to range, as they are much benefited by the scratching and foraging of the hen."
• (transitive) To shut up or confine in a narrow space; to cramp.
  "But the contempt of all other knowledge, as if it were nothing in comparison of law or physic, of astronomy or chemistry, or perhaps some yet meaner part of knowledge, wherein I have got some smattering, or am somewhat advanced, is not only the mark of a vain or little mind; but does this prejudice in the conduct of the understanding, that it coops it up within narrow bounds, and hinders it from looking abroad into other provinces of the intellectual world, […]"
• (transitive, intransitive, politics, historical) To unlawfully confine one or more voters to prevent them from casting their ballots in an election.
  "In 1819, one of those municipal contests for the election of the Common Council happened, and it was attended with that profuse expenditure of money in direct bribery, cooping, treating, and in short in all the modes of demoralizing the classes exposed to such influence, which were the disgraceful distinctions of those elections."
• (intransitive, law enforcement, slang) Of a police officer: to sleep or relax while on duty.
  "COOPING. The term cooping refers to police officers sleeping on duty. […] One critic of two-man squad cars suggests that this is a recipe for cooping, since one officer can drive while the other sleeps."

noun

• (regional, England, Scotland) A cart with sides and ends made from boards, enabling it to carry manure, etc.
  "Fan Coops an' Carts were unco rare, / An' Creels, an' Corrocks boot to ſair. […]"
• (regional, England, Scotland) A cart which opens at the back to release its load; a tumbril.
  "COOP, […] A cart, the box of which moves upon its shafts by hinges, by which means it may be emptied of its load without unyoking the horse, S. "The body of the cowp-cart is attached to the shafts by a peculiar kind of hinges, which allow of elevating it before, either partially or entirely, to facilitate the discharge of its load backwards, either by degrees into small heaps, or at once, without the trouble of unyoking the shaft horse." Agr. Surv. of Berw. p. 167. As used in the latter sense, the term is obviously from the v. to Coup, to overturn."

noun

• (Scotland) A small heap.
  "COOP, s[ubstantive] A small heap, as, "A coop of muck," a heap of dung; Lanarks[hire]."