cup

plural cups

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. The contents of said vessel.

   I drank two cups of water but still felt thirsty.

   1 more example

   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

   Synonyms: cupful

3. A customary unit of measure
   1. USA US unit of liquid measure equal to 8 fluid ounces (¹⁄₁₆ of a US gallon; 236.5882365 mL) or 240 mL.
   2. CanadaA Canadian unit of measure equal to 8 imperial ounces (¹⁄₂₀ imperial gallon; 227.3 mL) or 250 mL.
   3. UKdatedA British unit of measure equal to ¹⁄₂ imperial pint (10 imperial ounces; 284 mL) or 300 mL.
   4. AustraliaNew ZealandA metric unit of measure equal to 250 mL.
4. A trophy in the shape of an oversized cup.

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

   1 more example

   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

5. A contest for which a cup is awarded.

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

6. ball gamesThe main knockout tournament in a country, organised alongside the league.

   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

   2 more examples

   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

7. golfA cup-shaped object placed in the target hole.

   The ball just misses the cup.

8. A container in which dice are held and shaken before being thrown.
9. in compoundsusuallyAny of various sweetened alcoholic drinks.

   gin cup

   3 more examples

   cider cup

   claret cup

   The bridge tables were not set out in the garden-room, which entailed a scurry over damp gravel on a black, windy night, but in the little square parlour above her diningroom, where Withers, in the intervals of admitting her guests, was laying out plates of sandwiches and the chocolate cakes, reinforced when the interval for refreshments came with hot soup, whisky and syphons, and a jug of “cup” prepared according to an ancestral and economical recipe, which Miss Mapp had taken a great deal of trouble about. A single bottle of white wine, with suitable additions of ginger, nutmeg, herbs and soda-water, was the mother of a gallon of a drink that seemed aflame with fiery and probably spirituous ingredients. Guests were very careful how they partook of it, so stimulating it seemed.

   1922, E.F. Benson, Miss Mapp, London: Heinemann, published 1970, SBN 434 06504 8, pages 158–159

10. CanadaUSA rigid concave protective covering for the male genitalia.

    Players of contact sports are advised to wear a cup.

    1 more example

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

    2000 March 27, Bill Amend, FoxTrot (comic)

    Synonyms: box

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

    The cups are made of a particularly uncomfortable material.

    1. 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."

       2010, Tom Clancy, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 1-6, page 1149

12. mathematicsThe symbol ∪ denoting union and similar operations.
13. human sciencesA suit of the minor arcana in tarot, or one of the cards from the suit.
14. ultimate frisbeeA defensive style characterized by a three player near defense cupping the thrower; or those three players.
15. A flexible concave membrane used to temporarily attach a handle or hook to a flat surface by means of suction.

    Synonyms: suction cup

16. Anything shaped like a cup.

    the cup of an acorn

    2 more examples

    The cowslip's golden cup no more I see.

    1745, William Shenstone, Elegy VIII

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

    2003, Garrett Hack, The Handplane Book, page 143

17. historicalmedicineA cupping glass or other vessel or instrument used to produce the vacuum in cupping.
18. figurativelyThat 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.

    1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 26:39

present singular third person cups · participle present cupping · participle past cupped · past cupped

1. transitiveTo form into the shape of a cup, particularly of the hands.

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

2. transitiveTo hold something in cupped hands.

   He cupped the ball carefully in his hands.

3. transitiveTo pour (a liquid, drink, etc.) into a cup.

   We are cupping some new brands of coffee today.

4. obsoletetransitiveTo supply with cups of wine.

   Cup us, till the world go round.

   c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]

5. archaictransitivemedicineTo apply a cup or cupping apparatus to; to subject to the operation of cupping.
6. transitiveengineeringTo make concave or in the form of a cup.

   to cup the end of a screw

1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of Cambridge University Press.
2. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of Committee of Union and Progress.

1. informalhobbiesA particular trophy that is a cup; sometimes with the definite article "the".

plural Cups

1. informalhobbiesA win of a championship that is awarded a cup.
2. informalhobbiesA win of an event comprising part of the championship, which is awarded a cup