What does copout mean?
A copout is an excuse or evasive manoeuvre that allows someone to dodge a responsibility, commitment, or difficult choice instead of confronting it directly. The word is always informal and almost always disapproving: calling something a copout implies that a genuine answer, apology, or effort was expected but withheld. Typical examples include pleading busyness to avoid a hard conversation, blaming circumstances rather than admitting error, or refusing to take a position on the grounds that the issue is 'complicated'. The term arose in mid-twentieth-century America, rooted in the slang verb 'cop out', which itself draws on the older underworld use of 'cop' meaning to seize or surrender. Because it names such a familiar human behaviour, 'copout' has become a staple of everyday criticism, useful precisely because it condenses a moral judgement — that someone took the easy way out — into a single, instantly recognisable word.
nounAn excuse or evasive action taken to avoid a difficult situation, responsibility, or commitment, rather than facing it honestly.
- An excuse used to avoid responsibility, effort, or a difficult decision.
- An act of withdrawing from a commitment or avoiding involvement in a situation.
"Claiming he was too busy to vote was just a copout — the polls were open for fourteen hours."
"Blaming the weather for missing the interview struck her as an obvious copout."
"Saying 'it's complicated' is often just a copout for refusing to take a stand."
Standard plural; used when referring to multiple instances of evasive excuses.
"The report was full of copouts, each one vaguer than the last."
'Copout' was born in American police slang: to 'cop out' originally meant to cop out of something by confessing — literally, to cop (surrender) to the cops.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of copout
The word derives from the phrasal slang 'cop out', which emerged in American English in the early-to-mid twentieth century, particularly in criminal and police contexts where to 'cop out' could mean to give oneself up or back out of a situation. It builds on the older slang 'cop', meaning to seize, catch, or take, which entered English from northern French dialect. By around the 1960s the derived noun 'cop-out' had settled into its modern sense of an excuse or act of evasion, and it spread from American usage into British English.
How copout is actually used
Informal register; carries strong disapproval, implying cowardice or dishonesty. Almost always used critically of someone else's behaviour rather than one's own. Common in both British and American English since the mid-20th century.
Easily confused with copout
'Come out' is a verb meaning to emerge or become known, while 'copout' is a noun meaning an excuse or act of evasion.