cup
n. countablen. a small container, usually with a handle, that you use for drinking things like coffee or tea. It can also be a unit for measuring ingredients when you cook.
n. a small, open-topped container, typically with a handle, used for drinking hot beverages. It also refers to a standard unit of volume in cooking.
I drink a cup of tea every morning.
The recipe calls for one cup of flour and half a cup of sugar.
He held the delicate porcelain cup so carefully that it seemed to float in his hands, its contents steaming gently.
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.
Commonly used in the partitive construction 'a cup of' followed by an uncountable noun (e.g., tea, coffee, sugar).