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FRENCH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

couper.

to cut, cut up; to chop, to sever

6 characters2 syllables approx.Français language

Meaning & usage

verb/ku.pe/
  1. to cut, cut up; to chop, to sever

  2. to cut, to clip, to trim

    J'ai besoin de me faire couper les cheveux.
  3. to cut off, to keep out, to bar

    couper le cours d'une rivière
  4. to take away

    couper le souffle
    couper l'appétit
  5. to stop, prevent

    couper quelqu'un dans son élan
  6. to dilute, mix

    couper du whisky avec du coca
    L'industrie coupe le lait avec de l'eau pour se faire plus d'argent.
  7. to traverse

    Le fleuve de la Garonne coupe une grande partie du sud de la France
  8. to take a shortcut through something, to cut through

    idiomatic · intransitive
    couper à travers champs
  9. to crack

    reflexive
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Old French coper, colper (“to cut off”), probably, derived from cop (“blow”), colp (modern coup), with its meaning coming from the idea of cutting off with a blow. It may correspond to a Vulgar Latin verb *colpāre, syncopated form of *colaphāre, from Latin colaphus (compare Old Spanish golpar, colpar, Old Galician-Portuguese golpar, golbar). Alternatively, possibly from Vulgar Latin *cuppāre (“to behead”), from Latin caput (“head”), although this is unlikely. Not related to couteau.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.