kopje

• koppie

From (South African) Dutch kopje, diminutive of kop (“head”).

• IPA^(key): /kəʊpi/
• IPA^(key): /kɒpi/
  • Homophone: copy

kopje (plural kopjes)

1. (South Africa) A small hill or mound, especially on the African veld.
   • 1883 June, Ralph Iron [pseudonym; Olive Schreiner], “Shadows from Child-life. The Watch.”, in The Story of an African Farm, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: H. M. Caldwell Company, →OCLC, part I, page 9:

     In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken. Near the center a small solitary “kopje” rose. Alone it lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one upon the other, as over some giant’s grave.

   • 1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “Prospecting Begins”, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC, page 105:

     We selected a lichenous kopje perhaps fifteen yards away, and landed neatly on its summit one after the other.

   • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 206:

     It was nearly noon when he reached the great bowlder at the top of which terminated the secret passage to the pits beneath the city. Like a cat he scaled the precipitous sides of the frowning granite kopje.

   • 1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 8:

     Martha looked over a mile or so of bush to a strip of pink ploughed land; […] and then, ridge after ridge, fold after fold, the bush stretched to a line of blue kopjes.

   • 1978, André Brink, Rumours of Rain, Vintage, published 2000, page 72:

     On the koppie behind the village, the unsightly red-and-white skeleton of an FM tower.

• Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Tenth Edition (1997)

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kopje (plural kopjes)

1. (archaic) alternative form of koppie

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɔ.pjə/

• Audio:

  (file)

kopje n (plural kopjes)

1. diminutive of kop

kopje n (plural kopjes)

1. (of cats) an act of rubbing one's face on someone or something to spread pheromones

• koṕe (obsolete)

From Proto-Slavic *kopьje. Cognate with Upper Sorbian kopjo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɔpʲɛ/, [ˈkɔpʲə]

kopje n (diminutive kopjecko)

1. spear, javelin, lance, pike

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928) “koṕe”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999) “kopje”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag

From Proto-Slavic *kopьje.

• IPA^(key): /kòːpjɛ/

kọ́pje n

1. javelin

• “kopje”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU (in Slovene), 2014–2025