[Ads-l] Antedating of "Copacetic"

Tue Jul 21 01:19:24 UTC 2026

My guess is that the 1893 cite is a homonym meaning something like "sympathetic," and that the other citations have the meaning of "conducive of everything feeling perfect."  And I think that there is an African-American thread starting with the Chicago Defender and going through the 1920s and the Bill Robinson era.

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Ben Zimmer <00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2026 8:06 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Copacetic"

Doug Wilson noted the "copathetic" variant here back in 2005, providing a
slightly later 1919 cite:

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flistserv.linguistlist.org%2Fpipermail%2Fads-l%2F2005-January%2F044889.html&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C054d821ef7e4467c4de508dee6bc0612%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639201892411322077%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=dJL0wVP1TRNdUcZ0lqGEi9Dpzbd662iuUvDqBH10hNs%3D&reserved=0<https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2005-January/044889.html>

There's also this much earlier cite for that spelling, though based on
context the meaning seems to align more with "sympathetic":

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https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers.com%2Farticle%2Fthe-buffalo-news-copathetic%2F202068588%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C054d821ef7e4467c4de508dee6bc0612%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639201892411352747%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=FBRNquY1L3fO8GjExbk%2B4Qvu9m2wAWbZaHteqEvOLao%3D&reserved=0<https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-buffalo-news-copathetic/202068588/>
Buffalo Evening News, Mar. 7, 1893, p. 1, col. 8
The mild yet clear and distinct tones of the speaker given in her own
simple copathetic style touched every hearer interested in the mission work
among children.
---

--bgz

On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 7:58 PM Laurence Horn <
00001c05436ff7cf-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> The "copathetic" variant and, less clearly, that of "copesthetic" suggest
> influence from "sympathetic". (And now I'm wondering why my spell-check
> flags the first of these and not the second.)  Google's Al tells us
> "Popular theories suggest it evolved from Yiddish (*kol b'seder*),
> Louisiana French (*coupe-sétique*), or was simply coined by entertainer
> Bill "Bojangles" Robinson."
>
> LH
>
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 7:19 PM Shapiro, Fred <
> 00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation for the word
> "copacetic"
> > or "copasetic" is from Irving Bacheller's 1919 novel A Man for the Ages.
> > The Bacheller book has proven to be very difficult to antedate.
> >
> > Now the lexicography and research team of the forthcoming Oxford
> > Dictionary of African American English has uncovered prior use of this
> word
> > (in a spelling variant):
> >
> > 1918 Urbana (Illinois) Daily Courier 10 July 4/7 (Newspapers.com)
> Reports
> > Crops Favorable.  R. C. Lindsey made a trip to his farm west of Pesotum
> > last night and reports everything as being "copesthetic."  Ceph made the
> > trip in his new flivver and claims it to be a fast little scamp.
> >
> > I have found another antedating, also a spelling variant, as well:
> >
> > 1919 Chicago Defender 26 Apr. 9/1 (Newspapers.com)  Jimmy Nelson and Ben
> > Harris put on a Virginia ham supper at their cafe last Friday night,
> > without beans, and every one went home feeling copathetic, whatever that
> > means.
> >
> > I regard this as an antedating of the OED's 1919 cite because the first
> > mention of the serialization of A Man for the Ages in the papers covered
> by
> > Newspapers.com was on June 25, 1919.
> >
> > It seems that "copacetic" in one of its spellings may have been coined in
> > Illinois.  I also wonder whether the word, which was later popularized by
> > the famous Black entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, might have
> > originated in the African-American community.  My primary basis for such
> > speculation is the early occurrence in the Chicago Defender Black
> newspaper.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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