cup of coffee

noun

"cup-of-coffee" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“cup of coffee” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The situation where a minor league player comes up to the major league team for a short period of time.

Corpus desk

Index EN-cup-of-coffee · cup of coffee · English

cup of coffee · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 13 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "C" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for cup of coffee
PropertyValue
Headwordcup of coffee
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “cup of coffee” in English

cup of coffeesits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

cup of coffee is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.

No misspelling variants are generated for cup of coffee in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: Based on the idea that the player was only there long enough to have a cup of coffee. The correct English form is cup of coffee, spelled C-U-P- -O-F- -C-O-F-F-E-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    The situation where a minor league player comes up to the major league team for a short period of time.
  2. 2
    One’s personal preference.
  3. 3
    An invitation to have sex.
  4. 4
    How cheap something is.
  5. 5
    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cup, coffee.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how cup of coffee appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. I was up for a cup of coffee once; those were the best six days of my career.
  2. Since social anthropology is not my cup of coffee, I leave it to the research scholars to discover the true significance of this transformation.

Etymology

Based on the idea that the player was only there long enough to have a cup of coffee.

Synonyms

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cup of coffee"?
"cup of coffee" is spelled C-U-P- -O-F- -C-O-F-F-E-E.
What does "cup of coffee" mean?
As a noun, "cup of coffee" means: The situation where a minor league player comes up to the major league team for a short period of time.
What is the origin of the word "cup of coffee"?
Based on the idea that the player was only there long enough to have a cup of coffee. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list