Word.ws English Dictionary

rent-a-cops

rent-a-cops is the plural of rent-a-cop.

Meaning of rent-a-cop

Noun

rent-a-cop (plural rent-a-cops)

  1. (colloquial, derogatory) A private security guard, usually one regarded as inferior to and less skilled than an actual law enforcement officer.
    • “What got into you tonight? Why'd you pull that scene at the arcade? I had to mess up this rentacop^([sic]) came after me with nunchucks.”1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 24

Questions about rent-a-cops

What is rent-a-cops the plural of?
Rent-a-cops is the plural of rent-a-cop.

Words near rent-a-cops in the dictionary

  1. Rent's rule
  2. rent-a-
  3. rent-a-car
  4. rent-a-cars
  5. rent-a-cop
  6. rent-a-cops
  7. rent-a-crowd
  8. rent-a-crowds
  9. rent-a-dread
  10. rent-a-dreads
  11. rent-a-gob

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rent-a-cops (page history and authors); rent-a-cop (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.

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