In the C++ programming language, a copy constructor is a special constructor for creating a new object as a copy of an existing object. Copy constructors are the standard way of copying objects in C++, as opposed to cloning, and have C++-specific nuances. The first argument of such a constructor is a reference to an object of the same type as is being constructed (const or non-const), which might be followed by parameters of any type (all having default values).