meadcup

plural meadcups

1. obsoleteA cup for drinking mead.

   Fill the meadcup, drain the barrel, Fa la la la la la la la la.

   1862, Thomas Oliphant, “Deck the Halls”

   1 more example

   Then it was time and season that the son of Healfdene went to the hall; the king himself would partake of the feast. Never did I hear of tribes in greater multitude, bearing themselves well about their chieftain: the glorious warriors bent there to the bench; they rejoiced in the abundance of the feast, fairly they partook of many a meadcup, they, kinsmen of the bold of heart, in the lofty hall, they Hrothgar and Hrothwulf.

   1837 [c. 975-1025], John M. Kemble, transl., A Translation of the Anglo-Saxon Poem of Beowulf, translation of Beowulf (in Old English), page 42

2. figurativelyobsoleteAlcohol.

   2 more examples

   The example of so illustrious a teacher told with success upon his clergy; but his thanes appear to have been too devoted to the battlefield and the meadcup to have heeded the exhortations even of an Alfred; and he takes his place as the solitary lay-writer throughout the whole range of Anglo-Saxon literature.

   1843, Thomas Wright, “Article VI. Biographia Britannicæ Literariæ, or Biography of Literary Characters of Great Britain and Ireland, arranged in chronological order: Anglo Saxon period”, in The Eclectic Review, volume XIV, page 320

   “Already Olof wars no more, but sits idly by the hearth, and listens to southern tales from the whining lips of Hermolin. Even now the meadcup and the meats due to Odin are given to the throats of sick beggars, whom our fathers suffered not to cumber earth! And my lord Olof, the babe that I reared, hears it said that the gods of his fathers are false, and pardons the accursed lie, because if comes from fair lips.”

   1849, “The Cross on the Snow Mountains”, in Littell's Living Age, volume XXI, page 12