Other forms: copies, copied, copying
A copy is something made to be the same as an original — a photocopy, a copy of a key, a copy of a letter. It is also one of many identical printed things: a copy of the book, sold four million copies.
In advertising and publishing, copy means the written text itself: ad copy, a copywriter writes it, and copy deadline is when it has to be in. That sense is uncountable and takes no article. The verb means to make a copy, to imitate somebody, and in school to cheat by looking at another pupil's work. Copy and paste is the fixed phrase from computing, and copy somebody in is to include them on an email.
1nounduplicateSomething made to be the same as an original.
“Keep a copy of everything you send.”
synonyms: duplicate, reproduction
2nounidenticalOne of many identical printed items.
“The book has sold half a million copies.”
3verbverbTo make a copy of something.
“Copy the file onto the drive before you leave.”
4nouncopyThe written text of an advertisement or article.
“The copy is due by Thursday morning.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
copy is a reproduction.
Latin copia meant plenty or abundance — the same word behind copious. A medieval scribe writing out a text was making an abundance of it, and the word for the multiplying became the word for each one of the results.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃ep-
Middle English
copy
English, today
copy
Built from
From Middle English copy. From Middle English copy, copie, from Old French copie (“abundance, plenty; transcript, copy”), from Medieval Latin copia (“reproduction, transcript”), from Latin cōpia (“plenty, abundance”), from coopia, from co- (“together”) + ops (“wealth, riches”). More at opulent.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA