copious

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English copious,^[2] borrowed from Latin cōpiōsus (“plentiful, well supplied”),^{[3][4][5][6][7]} from cōpia (“plenty, abundance”),^[3][4][7] which Klein and Skeat explain as a contraction of a compound of co- (“together, with”) and ops (“power, wealth, resources”).^[7][8][4][9] Etymonline traces ops to Proto-Indo-European *op- (“to work, produce in abundance”).^[4] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English allow a borrowing from Old French copieux as well,^[10][11][12] and Barnhart thinks the French word may have reinforced the English one;^[6] the OED notes that Littré records the French adjective only from the 16th century.^[3] The Latin noun is also the source of copy and of the second part of cornucopia.^[13][9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Existing in abundance, plentiful: in the early Wycliffite Bible (c. 1384).^[3] Barnhart dates the word to about 1350,^[6] and Etymonline to the mid-14th century.^[4] The Middle English Dictionary's first quotations, from Trevisa (before 1387), speak of a land “noble, copious, and riche of nobil welles”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word could describe both a plentiful supply and a person or place well supplied with something; the second use, "abounding in", was dying out by the 19th century except in phrases such as copious sources.^[3] In the 15th century it was applied to speech: Lydgate used it of a speaker with a ready command of words (1430) and of a profuse, wordy style (c. 1450).^[3][2] By about 1550 it could describe a language with a large vocabulary.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as plentiful or abundant, and gave as a second sense "abounding in matter".^[14] The sense "numerous", recorded from the Wycliffite Bible, was obsolete by the mid-18th century.^[3] Word Origins notes that its relative copy has moved much further from the Latin, through the medieval Latin use of copia for a permission to transcribe.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1384 – plentiful, abundant; also numerous (obsolete by 1741).^[3]
• before 1387 – having or yielding an abundant supply (now obsolete except in set phrases).^[3][2]
• 1430 – having a ready command of language (obsolete by 1672).^[3]
• c. 1450 – profuse or wordy in speech or style.^[3]
• before 1500 – full of information or matter.^[3]
• c. 1550 – of a language, having a large vocabulary.^[3]
• 1791 – as an adverb, copiously.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Present in large quantity; plentiful or abundant: She took copious notes during the lecture.^[15][16]
2. Having or yielding a plentiful supply: a copious spring.^[16][15]
3. Full of information, ideas or matter.^[16][15][3]
4. Profuse or exuberant in words or style.^[16][3]

Word family

• copiously
• copiousness
• uncopious
• overcopious

Related words

• cornucopia
• copy
• opulent

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster