cup
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cup", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "cup" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "cup" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cup is aEnglishnoun. It means: A concave vessel for drinking, usually made of opaque material (as opposed to a glass) and with a handle. Pronounced /kʌp/. It ranks #805 in English word frequency. Often confused with CV and CW.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cup |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kʌp/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #805 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cup is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kʌp/. Corpus data places it at rank #805 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 22 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for cup in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CV", "CW", "CX", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is cup, spelled C-U-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A concave vessel for drinking, usually made of opaque material (as opposed to a glass) and with a handle.
- 2The contents of said vessel.
- 3A customary unit of measure
- 4A customary unit of measure
- 5A customary unit of measure
- 6A customary unit of measure
- 7A trophy in the shape of an oversized cup.
- 8A contest for which a cup is awarded.
- 9The main knockout tournament in a country, organised alongside the league.
- 10A cup-shaped object placed in the target hole.
- 11A container in which dice are held and shaken before being thrown.
- 12Any of various sweetened alcoholic drinks.
- 13A rigid concave protective covering for the male genitalia.
- 14One of the two parts of a brassiere which each cover a breast.
- 15One of the two parts of a brassiere which each cover a breast.
- 16The symbol ∪ denoting union and similar operations.
- 17A suit of the minor arcana in tarot, or one of the cards from the suit.
- 18A defensive style characterized by a three player near defense cupping the thrower; or those three players.
- 19A flexible concave membrane used to temporarily attach a handle or hook to a flat surface by means of suction.
- 20Anything shaped like a cup.
- 21A cupping glass or other vessel or instrument used to produce the vacuum in cupping.
- 22That which is to be received or indured; that which is allotted to one; a portion of blessings and afflictions.
Etymology
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.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #805 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: