cup
/ˈkʌp/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.11 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Pour the tea into the cup."
- "I drank two cups of water but still felt thirsty."
- "In Starbucks’s case, the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property."
- "The World Cup is awarded to the winner of a quadrennial football tournament."
- "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."
- "The World Cup is the world's most widely watched sporting event."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kewp-der. Latin cūpa ▲ Frankish *koppinflu.? Late Latin cuppabor.? Proto-Indo-European *gew-der. Proto-Germanic *kuppaz? Old English cuppe ▲ Proto-Germanic *kuppaz Old English copp Middle English cuppe, coppe English cup 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈkʌp/
- British English: /ˈkʌp/
Usage
- American usage
- Canadian usage
- British usage
- Dated
- Australian usage
- New Zealand usage
- Transitive verb
- Obsolete