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cup

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • Canada//ˈkʌp//
  • Australia//ˈkɐp//
  • Australia/[ˈkɐ̞p]/

A concave vessel for drinking, usually made of opaque material (as opposed to a glass) and with a handle.

noun

  1. 1

    A concave vessel for drinking, usually made of opaque material (as opposed to a glass) and with a handle.

    Pour the tea into the cup.

  2. 2

    The contents of said vessel.

    I drank two cups of water but still felt thirsty.

    In Starbucks’s case, the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property.

  3. 3

    A customary unit of measure A US unit of liquid measure equal to 8 fluid ounces (¹⁄₁₆ of a US gallon; 236.5882365 mL) or 240 mL.

  4. 4

    A customary unit of measure A Canadian unit of measure equal to 8 imperial ounces (¹⁄₂₀ imperial gallon; 227.3 mL) or 250 mL.

  5. 5

    datedA customary unit of measure A British unit of measure equal to ¹⁄₂ imperial pint (10 imperial ounces; 284 mL) or 300 mL.

  6. 6

    A customary unit of measure A metric unit of measure equal to 250 mL.

  7. 7

    A trophy in the shape of an oversized cup.

    The World Cup is awarded to the winner of a quadrennial football tournament.

    Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

  8. 8

    A contest for which a cup is awarded.

    The World Cup is the world's most widely watched sporting event.

  9. 9

    The main knockout tournament in a country, organised alongside the league.

    Until it was disbanded in 1999, the European Cup-Winners Cup was contested annually by the winners of Europe's national cups.

    Wallace had the unique distinction of being the only player ever to play in the English, Welsh and Scottish Cups in the same season.

    One week earlier, they had lost 5-2 to Borussia Dortmund in the DFB-Pokal [the German cup] final in Berlin.

  10. 10

    A cup-shaped object placed in the target hole.

    The ball just misses the cup.

  11. 11

    A container in which dice are held and shaken before being thrown.

  12. 12

    Any of various sweetened alcoholic drinks.

    cider cup

    gin cup

    claret cup

  13. 13

    A rigid concave protective covering for the male genitalia.

    Players of contact sports are advised to wear a cup.

    Boys, I thought I told you to let the store tell you what cup size you needed.

  14. 14

    One of the two parts of a brassiere which each cover a breast.

    The cups are made of a particularly uncomfortable material.

  15. 15

    One of the two parts of a brassiere which each cover a breast. Prefixed with a letter, used as a measurement of bra or breast size.

    "For cleavage to show up in these photos, a girl has to have C-cup breasts — at least that's what they told me once."

  16. 16

    The symbol ∪ denoting union and similar operations.

  17. 17

    A suit of the minor arcana in tarot, or one of the cards from the suit.

  18. 18

    A defensive style characterized by a three player near defense cupping the thrower; or those three players.

  19. 19

    A flexible concave membrane used to temporarily attach a handle or hook to a flat surface by means of suction.

  20. 20

    Anything shaped like a cup.

    the cup of an acorn

    The cowslip's golden cup no more I see.

    Even if the parts are thicknessed by machine, check for and plane out any cup with a bench plane.

  21. 21

    historicalA cupping glass or other vessel or instrument used to produce the vacuum in cupping.

  22. 22

    figurativeThat which is to be received or indured; that which is allotted to one; a portion of blessings and afflictions.

    O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kewp-der. Latin cūpa ▲ Frankish *koppinflu.? Late Latin cuppabor.? Proto-Indo-European *gew-der. Proto-Germanic *kuppaz? Old English cuppe ▲ Proto-Germanic *kuppaz Old English copp Middle English cuppe, coppe English cup Inherited from Middle English cuppe, coppe, from the merger of Old English cuppe (“cup”) and Old English copp (“cup, vessel”). Old English cuppe is a borrowing from Late Latin cuppa, itself of obscure origin, but probably from earlier Latin cūpa (“tub, cask”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewp- (“a hollow”). Old English copp, however, is from Proto-West Germanic *kopp (“round object, bowl, vessel, knoll, summit, crown of the head”), from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to bend, curve, arch”) (whence also obsolete English cop (“top, summit, crown of the head”), German Kopf (“top, head”)). The Middle English word was further reinforced by Anglo-Norman cupe and Old French cope, coupe, from Latin cuppa. Compare also Saterland Frisian Kop (“cup”), West Frisian kop (“cup”), Dutch kop (“cup”), German Low German Koppke, Köppke (“cup”), Danish kop (“cup”), Swedish kopp (“cup”). Doublet of coupe, hive, and keeve.

verb

  1. 1

    To form into the shape of a cup, particularly of the hands.

    Cup your hands and I'll pour some rice into them.

  2. 2

    To hold something in cupped hands.

    He cupped the ball carefully in his hands.

  3. 3

    To pour (a liquid, drink, etc.) into a cup.

    We are cupping some new brands of coffee today.

  4. 4

    obsoleteTo supply with cups of wine.

    Cup us, till the world go round.

  5. 5

    archaicTo apply a cup or cupping apparatus to; to subject to the operation of cupping.

  6. 6

    To make concave or in the form of a cup.

    to cup the end of a screw

Forms

plural
cups
past tense
cupped
past participle
cupped
present participle
cupping
third person singular
cups
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).