coppice

English edit

WOTD – 31 July 2012

A recently coppiced alder.

From Middle English copies, from Old French copeiz (“a cut-over forest”), from presumed Vulgar Latin *colpaticium (“having the quality of being cut”), from *colpāre (“to cut, strike”), from *colpus (“a blow”), from Latin colaphus (“a cuff, box on the ear”), from Ancient Greek κόλαφος (kólaphos, “a blow, slap”).

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Coppicing

Wikipedia

coppice (plural coppices)

A grove of small growth; a thicket of brushwood; a wood cut at certain times for fuel or other purposes, typically managed to promote growth and ensure a reliable supply of timber. See copse.
- 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict‎^[1]:
  […] belts of thin white mist streaked the brown plough land in the hollow where Appleby could see the pale shine of a winding river. Across that in turn, meadow and coppice rolled away past the white walls of a village bowered in orchards, […]
- 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 216:
  It was also enacted that all coppices or underwoods should be enclosed for periods from four to seven years after felling.

grove of small growth

coppice (third-person singular simple present coppices, present participle coppicing, simple past and past participle coppiced)

(transitive) To manage (a wooded area) sustainably, as a coppice, by periodically cutting back woody plants to promote new growth.
Her plan to coppice the woods should keep her self-sufficient in fuel indefinitely.
(intransitive) To sprout from the stump.
Few conifer species can coppice.

manage a wooded area as a coppice

sprout from the stump

Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “coppice”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. [see also its linking entry coup]