To copy the latest version of a design document to a new document you specify the base document and target document:

COPY http://couchdb:5984/recipes/_design/recipes
Content-Type: application/json
Destination: /recipes/_design/recipelist

The above request copies the design document recipes to the new design document recipelist. The response is the ID and revision of the new document.

{
   "id" : "recipes/_design/recipelist"
   "rev" : "1-9c65296036141e575d32ba9c034dd3ee",
}