coopering

coopering is the present participle and gerund of cooper.

Meaning of cooper

cooper (third-person singular simple present coopers, present participle coopering, simple past and past participle coopered)

(archaic) To make and repair barrels etc.
(obsolete, slang, transitive) To forge or imitate (writing).
- […] though, owing to his forged signatures having been too often detected, he was declared to be "a duffer at coopering a monekur."1872, Augustus Mayhew, Paved with Gold, page 269
(obsolete, slang, transitive) To intentionally injure (a racehorse) to spoil its chances of winning.
- Every design that villainy could suggest was had recourse to in the hopes of nobbling Wild Dayrell; but never being left for an hour by either his trainer or jockey, he escaped the intended 'coopering', even when the lynchpins of the wheels of his van had been tampered with.1864, Baily's Magazine of Sports & Pastimes, volume 8, page 110

coopering (uncountable)

What does coopering mean?: Coopering means the vocation of, or output of, a cooper (barrelmaker): synonym of cooperage.
What is coopering the present participle and gerund of?: Coopering is the present participle and gerund of cooper.
What part of speech is coopering?: Coopering is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: coopering (page history and authors); cooper (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “coopering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coopering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.