stirrup cup

plural stirrup cups

1. historicalA parting drink taken after mounting one's horse.

   They now gave him an invitation to come again on new-year's night, as they were then to have great festivity; and a maiden who held a gold-cup in her hand invited him to drink the stirrup-cup.

   1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 181

   1 more example

   1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, Tales of My Landlord, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, Volume 2, Chapter 4, pp. 85-86, […] after the Lord Keeper, the Master, and the domestics, had drunk doch-an-dorroch, or the stirrup-cup, in the liquors adapted to their various ranks, the cavalcade resumed its progress.

2. broadlyA drink taken before leaving or parting company with someone.

   Mrs. French insisted that they come into her room for a cordial, when she heard they were leaving. “You must have a stirrup cup,” Mrs. French said to Carol.

   1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 19, in The Price of Salt, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, published 2015, page 190

   Synonyms: one for the road

3. A cup from which such a drink is taken.

   Bishop Dancer is a man you would most quickly understand if you saw him on a Saturday in Camden, dressed in his red hunting jacket and high black boots, leaning forward to accept some hot toddy from the stirrup cup.

   1988, Peter Carey, chapter 65, in Oscar and Lucinda, New York: Vintage, published 2011