quaich

plural quaichs · plural quaiches · alternative quaigh · alternative quegh

1. ScotlandhistoricalA traditional shallow, two-handled cup of Scottish origin symbolizing friendship, originally used to toast the arrival or departure of a visitor.

   The quaighs were deep, the liquor strong, / And on the tale the yeoman throng, / Had made a comment sage and long, [...]

   1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Third. The Hostel, or Inn.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza XXVIII, page 101

   2 more examples

   Every evening through all the summer Lampusa put out for them before her rock-hewn kitchen a silver quaich of milk; then she summoned the creatures with a low call.

   1947 [1939], Ernst Jünger, translated by Stuart Hood, On the Marble Cliffs, New Directions, translation of Auf den Marmorklippen (in German), →LCCN, →OCLC, page 13

   A quaich was an ideal gift when made from the timber of the fifteenth-century Alloway Kirk, which, "as you will have read in 'Tam O'Shanter', was a ruin in [Robert] Burns day but had the roof nearly intact until the turn of that century, (18th-19th). The rafters and other load bearing beams were ideal for souvenir makers" (letter, Nov. 19, 1991).

   1994, John A. Hyman, Silver at Williamsburg: Drinking Vessels, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, page 48

2. ScotlandbroadlyAny two-handled drinking vessel or trophy.