Definition
nounA concave vessel for drinking, usually made of opaque material (as opposed to a glass) and with a handle.
nounThe contents of said vessel.
Sentence Examples
Would you mind making an extra cup of coffee whenever you decide to have some?
I'm glad you enjoy skiing, but I guess it's just not my cup of tea.
He filled the cup with water.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"In Starbucks’s case, the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property."
— 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
"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."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"Until it was disbanded in 1999, the European Cup-Winners Cup was contested annually by the winners of Europe's national cups."
— 2002, Rob Dimery, Peter Watts, Guinness world records, Gullane Children's Books, →ISBN:
"Wallace had the unique distinction of being the only player ever to play in the English, Welsh and Scottish Cups in the same season."
— 2011, Michael Grant, Rob Robertson, The Management: Scotland's Great Football Bosses, Birlinn, →ISBN:
"One week earlier, they had lost 5-2 to Borussia Dortmund in the DFB-Pokal [the German cup] final in Berlin."
— 2014, Martí Perarnau, Pep Confidential: Inside Pep Guardiola's First Season at Bayern Munich, Birlinn, →ISBN: