copacetic
/ˌkoʊ.pəˈsɛt.ɪk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.73 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "["][…]an' as to looks I'd call him, as ye might say, real copasetic." Mrs. Lukins expressed this opinion solemnly and with a slight cough. Its last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning.[…] There was one other word in her lexicon which was in the nature of a jewel to be used only on special occasions. It was the word "copasetic"."
- "Extract of lemon and ginger ale / Sweet pertuna with shoe polish, then you're bound for jail / "Copacetic" was the password for one and all / The new Jump Steady ball"
- "Molly-squally, Miss Molly / Yeah, everything copacetic, now"
- "Count the cash, clean the oven, dump the trash, oh your loving is a rare and a copacetic gift."
- "It’s a shame those boys couldn’t be more copacetic."
- "Colombia and Brazil were supposed to be more copacetic."
Etymology
Stephen Goranson says "there is good reason to think that Irving Bacheller invented the word [with the spelling copasetic] for a fictional character with a private vocabulary in his best-selling and later-serialized 1919 book about Abraham Lincoln in Illinois, A Man for the Ages", and its currency increased by use in the 1920 song "At the New Jump Steady Ball" (see quotation below). Alternatively, it has been speculated that it may have originated among African Americans in the Southern US in the late 19th or early 20th century, perhaps specifically in the jargon of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who certainly helped popularize it in any case. Many hypotheses about its origin (etymon) exist, all lacking supporting evidence: Possible origins * That it derives from Cajun French coup esètique / coupersètique (“capable of being coped with successfully; able to cope with anything and everything”). * That it derives from a word *copasetti used by Italian speakers in New York. * That it derives from Chinook Jargon copasenee (“everything is satisfactory”) — if the Chinook Jargon term is not itself derived from English. * The common suggestion that the term derives from Hebrew הכל בסדר (hakól b'séder, “everything is in order”) has been rejected, as has the fanciful suggestion that it derives from criminals' observation that they could go about their business because "the cop is on the settee".
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌkoʊ.pəˈsɛt.ɪk/
- British English: /kəʊ.pəˈsɛt.ɪk/
Usage
Inflected Forms
more copacetic (comparative)
most copacetic (superlative)
copasetic (alternative)
kopacetic (alternative)
kopasetic (alternative)