Other forms: copings
Coping is managing to deal with something hard. Coping well, coping strategies, not coping.
It means getting through rather than solving, which is exactly the point: coping is what you do when the problem cannot be removed. Coping strategies is the clinical term, and they divide into ones aimed at the problem and ones aimed at the feeling. Not coping is a serious admission. Note that a coping is also the capping course of stone on a wall, which is an unrelated word.
1nouncopingManaging to deal with something hard.
“The counsellor taught her some coping strategies for her anxiety.”
2nouncappingThe capping course of stone on a wall.
“A loose stone from the coping fell off the top of the garden wall.”
coping is a managing, or a wall capping.
Cope plus -ing. The verb cope came from Old French couper, to strike, so coping originally meant coming to blows with a difficulty rather than merely enduring it.
Middle English
coupen
Old French
couper
English
cope
English, today
coping
From cope + ing. The sense referring to a brick wall is cope#Etymology 2, used in the sense "dress in a cope," "to cover." cope comes from Old French couper. From Middle English coupen, from Old French coper (“to strike, to cut”). The noun use went mainstream around 2020.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA