Sneaker culture
Cop
Also called Copped, Copping, Cop a pair
To cop is to successfully buy a sneaker you were trying to get, almost always at retail and almost always from a release where supply ran short. It is the opposite of taking an L. On SNKRS, copping needs two separate things to happen: the Draw selects your entry, and the order goes through on your card.
In use: Copped the Lows at retail means the pair was bought at Nike list price rather than from a reseller. Trying to cop means you have entered and the result is not in yet.
Where the word comes from and what it actually claims
Cop is sneaker shorthand for getting the thing you wanted at the price you wanted to pay. It predates SNKRS and it predates sneaker apps generally, borrowed from a much older slang where to cop something is simply to obtain it.
In a SNKRS context the word hides a two-step process, and the distinction is worth keeping. First a Draw selects your entry, which is the Got ‘Em notification. Then the order has to actually be placed against your card. People say they copped when both happened. When only the first happened and the payment failed, what you have is a story rather than a pair, and that failure is the most preventable one in the whole sequence.
Cop also carries a price claim. Copping usually implies retail. Buying the same shoe from a reseller three days later is a purchase, and most people would not call it a cop, because the word is doing work about scarcity rather than about ownership.
The opposite is an L, or Missed ‘Em on the notification itself. Neither is a verdict on anything you did. A Draw picks at random from the entries in the pool, so on a hyped release most entries lose for reasons that have nothing to do with the person who submitted them.