Cooper (profession)

A cooper is a person trained to make wooden casks, barrels, vats, buckets, tubs, troughs and other similar containers from timber staves that were usually heated or steamed to make them pliable. Journeymen coopers also traditionally made wooden implements, such as rakes and wooden-bladed shovels. In addition to wood, other materials, such as iron, were used in the manufacturing process. The trade is the origin of the surname Cooper. The word "cooper" is derived from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German kūper 'cooper' from kūpe 'cask', in turn from Latin cupa 'tun, barrel'. Everything a cooper produces is referred to collectively as cooperage. A cask is any piece of cooperage containing a bouge, bilge, or bulge in the middle of the container. A barrel is a type of cask, so the terms "barrel-maker" and "barrel-making" refer to just one aspect of a cooper's work. The facility in which casks are made is also referred to as a cooperage. In much the same way as the trade or vocation of smithing produced the common English surname Smith and the German name Schmidt (see occupational surname), the cooper trade is also the origin of the English name Cooper. It is also the origin of the French Tonnelier and Tonnellier; Greek Varelas (Βαρελάς); Danish Bødker; German Binder, Fassbender or Fassbinder (Faßbinder, literally 'cask-binder'), Böttcher ('tub-maker'), Scheffler, and Kübler; Dutch Kuiper and Cuypers; Lithuanian Kubilius; Latvian Mucenieks; Armenian Տակառագործյան; Hungarian Kádár, Bognár and Bodnár; Polish Bednarz, Bednarski, and Bednarczyk; Czech Bednář; Romanian Dogaru and Butnaru; Ukrainian Bondar, Bodnaruk, and Bodnarchuk, and Bondarenko (Бондаренко); Russian and Ukrainian Bondarev (Бондарев) and Bocharov (Бочаров); Yiddish Bodner; Portuguese Tanoeiro and Toneleiro; Spanish Cubero, Tonelero, and (via Greek) Varela; Bulgarian Bachvarov (Бъчваров); Macedonian Bacvarovski (Бачваровски); Croatian Bačvar; Slovene Pintar (from German Binder) and Italian Bottai (from botte).