Cup

Cup (pronounced kuhp)

(1) A small, open container now manufactured usually using ceramics, plastic, glass or metal, typically with a single handle and used as a receptacle from which to drink fluids (tea, coffee, soup etc) and often categorized by design according to their nominal use (tea cup, coffee cup etc); many cups are supplied in sets with a saucer on which the cup sits protecting surfaces from spillage and offer a place on which a stirring spoon may sit.  A cup can be made from glass but may not be a “glass” while a glass made from glass may also have a handle while mugs are essentially cups but called something else.

(2) The bow-like part of a goblet or the like.

(3) A cup with its contents (“a cup of tea” et al).

(4) The quantity contained in a cup (which can be a general reference to any cup or a precisely defined measure).

(5) As a customary unit of measure, a defined unit of capacity frequently used in cooking, the quantum of which varies between (and sometimes within) markets but historically based on a half pint (now usually expressed as 220-250 ml or 14-20 tablespoons).  Measuring cups are available with graduations.

(6) An ornamental bowl, vase, etc especially of precious metal, offered as a prize for a contest (the use of “cup” often persisting even when trophies have been re-designed in a different form); a sporting contest in which a cup (or some other trophy) is awarded to the winner (collective known as the “cup competitions”).

(7) Any of various mixed beverages with one ingredient as a base and historically served from a bowl (claret cup burgundy cup, gin cup, cider cup etc).

(8) In Christianity, the chalice used in the Eucharist (used also of the consecrated wine of the Eucharist).

(9) Something to be partaken of or endured; one's portion, as of joy or suffering.

(10) In many fields, any cup-like utensil, organ, part, cavity etc; anything resembling a cup in shape or function.

(11) In botany, parts such as the flower base of some plants.

(12) In women’s underwear, the two forms containing the breasts in a bra or other garment in which an apparatus with a similar function is integrated (camisoles, bathing suits etc).

(13) In certain sports, a concave protective covering for the male genitalia, reinforced with usually with rigid plastic or metal (in some markets called a “box”, “cup” the common form in North America).

(14) In golf-course construction, the metal receptacle within the hole or the hole itself.

(15) In astronomy, a constellation or a crater.

(16) In pre-modern medicine, as “cupping glass”, a glass vessel from which air can be removed by suction or heat to create a partial vacuum, formerly used in drawing blood to the surface of the skin for slow blood-letting (also called the “artificial leech”).  The concept (cupping) remains in use (though without the blood-letting) in certain beauty treatments popular in East-Asia.

(17) In metalworking, a cylindrical shell closed at one end, especially one produced in the first stages of a deep-drawing operation; to form (tubing, containers etc) by punching hot strip or sheet metal and drawing it through a die.

(18) In mathematics, the cup-like symbol ∪, used to indicate the union of two sets.

(19) As CUP, the international standard (ISO 4217) currency code for the Cuban peso.

(20) In tarot card reading, a suit of the minor arcana or one of the cards from the suit.

(21) In ultimate frisbee competition, a defensive style characterized by a three player near defense cupping the thrower (or those three players).

(22) A flexible concave membrane used temporarily to attach a handle or hook to a flat surface by means of suction (the “suction cup”, the origins of which were in biomimicry (octopodes et al)).

(23) To take or place in, or as in, a cup.

(24) To form into a cuplike shape.

Pre-1000: From the Middle English cuppe & coppe, created by a blending of the Old English cuppe (cup) and the & Old Northumbrian copp (cup, vessel), from the Late Latin cuppa which etymologists list as being of uncertain origin but thought probably a variant of the earlier cūpa (tub, cask, tun, barrel) which may have been cognate with the Sanskrit kupah (hollow, pit, cave), the Greek kype (gap, hole; a kind of ship), the Old Church Slavonic kupu, the Lithuanian kaupas, the Old Norse hufr (ship's hull) and the Old English hyf (beehive).  Etymologists are divided on whether the source of the original Latin was the primitive Indo-European kewp- (a hollow) or the non Indo-European loanword kup- which was borrowed by and from many languages.  The Old English copp was from the Proto-West Germanic kopp (round object, bowl, vessel, knoll, summit, crown of the head), from the Proto-Germanic kuppaz, from the primitive Indo-European gew- (to bend, curve, arch), the source also of the obsolete English cop (top, summit, crown of the head) and the German Kopf (top, head).  The Middle English word evolved also under the influence of the Anglo-Norman cupe & the Old French cope & coupe.  The Late Latin cuppa begat many words meaning “cup” including the Old French coupe, the Saterland Frisian & West Frisian kop, the Old Frisian kopp, the Italian coppa, the Middle Dutch coppe, the Dutch kop & kopje, the Middle Low German kopp, the German Low German Koppke & Köppke, the Danish kop, the Spanish copa and the Swedish kopp.  It was a doublet of coupe, hive and keeve.  The German cognate Kopf now means exclusively “head”.  The first cups doubtlessly were formed by a “cupping” of the hands in order to drink and that action would have been pre-human and an important evolutionary step in the development of the brain.  Later, whatever fell conveniently to hand (sea-shells, the shells of nuts etc) would have been used before drinking vessels came to be fashioned from clay, wood or other materials.  Cup is a noun & verb, cupped & cupping are verbs; the noun plural is cups.

Art Deco and the coffee cup.

By the late fourteenth century, “cup” had come to be used of just about in the shape of what is now understood as a cup, the sense of “quantity contained in a cup” emerging about the same time.  The sense of a “cup-shaped metal vessel offered as a prize in sport or games” dates from the 1640s, the origin thought to be the traditional ceremonial ritual of celebrating victory by drinking wine or some other alcoholic brew and while it’s speculative, anthropologists have suggested there may be some symbolic link with the idea of “drinking the blood of the vanquished”.  The idea obviously persists, and among the more disgusting versions is drinking from a shoe or boot worn by the victor during the event.  That particular form of podophilic mixology actually has a long history but of late it’s become something of a fetish on the podiums in motor-sport; the term “shoey” was coined in the barbarian nation of Australia.

The origin of the use of “one cup in life” is in the Biblical scripture: And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. (Matthew 26:39 (King James Version (KJV, 1611))).

The word cup appears in many scriptural verses which refer to God's judgment or a time of great suffering, Christ Himself asking James and John if they could "drink the cup" (Matthew 20:22) assigned to Him (by which he meant the suffering that He would soon endure on the cross, experiencing God's judgment for the sins of humanity.  It’s an important theological point, emphasized (Hebrews 4:15) by Jesus seeming to be overwhelmed and saddened by the prospect and awfulness of his crucifixion, praying to God he be spared this fate.  Jesus was, although the son of God, also fully human and few humans wish to suffer humiliation, torture, and death so his prayer was natural but critically, almost at once he submits and resolves to obey the will of the Father.  Whatever his human anguish at what is to come, his absolute commitment is to obeying God.  The idea then is that “suffering is to be endured” was by the fourteenth century expressed in phrases like “the cup of life” and whatever may be the cup, it is “something to be partaken of” because it is the will of God.  In figurative use thus, “one’s cup” is that which is one’s lot to be endured; that which is allotted to one for good and bad.

The daffodil (one of the common names of flowers of the genus Narcissus); as in many flowers, the alternative name for the corona is the cup.

To be in one's cups was to be “intoxicated”, a use dating from the 1610s which may have been a direct development from the mid-fourteenth century Middle English cup-shoten (drunk, drunken).  One’s “cup of tea” is what interests one and came into use in the 1930s of things or concepts although it’s documented from 1908 applying to persons; tellingly, the use of “not my cup of tea” is more common.  The “cup-bearer” was an early fifteenth century job description to describe the “attendant at a feast who conveys wine or other liquor to guests” but a more specialized use was of the court official who carried with him the cups, plates and other utensils to be used by those fearing poisoning (usually royalty or feudal barons).  The phrase “storm in a tea cup” refers to a fuss being made over a trivial matter and is in the same vein as “much ado about nothing”, “tempest in a teapot”, “storm in a teapot”, “lightning in a bottle” and “make a mountain out of a molehill”.

Example of the idiomatic use of cup in the phrase “one’s cups runneth over”: Model Adriana Fenice (b 1994) in 32G (10G or anything between 70-82G in some markets) bra.

The verb use “to cup” was a part of pre-modern medicine by the fourteenth century, describing the use of something cup-like to press against the skin to draw blood closer to the surface prior to “slow blood-letting”.  Medical dictionaries note there were two modes of cupping: one in which the part is scarified and some blood taken away to relieve congestion or inflammation of internal parts (“wet cupping”, or simply “cupping”), the other in which there was no scarification no blood was abstracted (“dry cupping”).  The concept (as “cupping” and without the bleeding) is still used in certain beauty treatments popular in East-Asia.  The cupful (quantity; that a cup holds, contents of a cup) was known in late Old English and persists to this day, the phrase “cup runneth over” is used to refer an over-supply of anything and was from the Hebrew Bible (Psalms:23:5) where the message was “I have more than enough for my needs” and thus a caution against greed, or in the words of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): Ich habe genug (I have enough) now a most unfashionable view although one with which Adriana Fenice might concur.  Modifiers are appended as required, hyphenated and not including the teacup (circa 1700), the egg-cup (used for making the eating of boiled eggs easier (1773)) and the cupcake (1828).  Cupcakes were “small cakes intended for one” and were an invention of US English, the name derived either from cup-shaped containers in which they were baked or from the small measures of ingredients used.  The slang use to describe an “attractive young woman” was another American innovation from the 1930s.

Art Deco and the tea cup: 1934 "Tango" trio by Royal Doulton in bone china, the cup with the classic pointed handle.

The use of “cup” in recipes is probably one of the less helpful uses of the word and for those not familiar with the conventions, they were probably baffled and wondering which of the various sized cups they had should be used.  The origin of “cup” as a measure lies in the old English unit which was ½ an imperial pint and thus (10 imperial ounces (284 ml), often later rounded to 300 ml.  Elsewhere, countries did their own thing: In Australia & New Zealand it was set at 250 ml after the conversion to metric measurements in 1973; In the US it was a liquid measure equal to 8 fluid ounces (237 ml which was usually rounded to 240); In Canada it was set at 8 imperial ounces (227 ml and rounded to 250).  The “metric cup” is now a universal 250 ml and for recipes this appears to be the preferred use even in North America.

Bra cups

Example of the idiomatic use of cup in the phrase "storm in a D Cup": Lindsay Lohan in demi-cup bra, from a photoshoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for Love magazine, 2012.

If in cooking "cup" has been (just about) standardized around the world, the bra cup, that other use of cup as an expression of volume is bafflingly diverse, anomalies appearing even within a manufacturer's catalogue.  The use of cup in the bra business seems to have begun in the 1930s although among historians of the bra (a surprisingly well populated niche in the discipline of the history of fashion) many differ in detail; the vague consensus seems to be the term was first used in this context in the early 1930s, was wide-spread by 1940 and almost universal by the early 1950s.  The principle of the cup size was compelling simple in that there were two variables (1) the torso and (2) the breasts.  The measurement of the torso was expressed by the bra band size (measured under the bust) in inches (or its metric equivalent) such as 30”, 32”, 34” etc, the graduations between the numbers handled by the fastening mechanism (usually a hook & eye arrangement) allowing a “tight” or “loose” fit so a 32” band could be worn by someone with a torso measurement in a 31-33 inch range.  The cup size range corresponded with the volume of the breast and (in ascending order) these were expressed in letters: A, B, C, D etc so when combined, the products were called 32B, 34C etc.  In theory, the two values worked progressively so the cup size of a 32C was the same as a 30D and a 34B.

Bra size multi-national conversion chart by Fredericks of Hollywood.  It seems an industry crying out for an ISO.

Unfortunately the manufacturers complicated things in a number of ways.  Given the A,B,C,D ascending sequence, it would have been reasonable to assume E,F,G & H would follow and in some cases they did but not all, some adopting a double letter convention yielding DD, EE etc but these did not represent fractional sizing-steps between single letters; what was to some manufacturers a DD was an E to others and some were so taken with the idea they added triple lettered sizes so a 32DDD was nominally the equivalent of a 32F from another house.  Some quirks were understandable such as the one which explains the rarity of the I cup, the explanation being the character might be confused with a numeric 1 which, given the syntax of the system, seems improbable but one can see their point.  Then there was the band size.  Most countries of course use the metric system so dimensions had to be converted but the convention for those advertised in inches was to use increments of 2 (28, 30, 32 etc) while for metric users it was in jumps of 5 cm (70, 75, 80 etc) which is close but not quite the same (28” = 71.12 cm; 30” = 76.2 cm; 32 = 82.28 cm).

Under the A-B-C-D etc cup-sizing system, a given designation varies in dimensions (and thus volumetric capacity) according to the band size, the cup of a 28A smaller than that of a 32A (which should share size and shape with that used on a 30B).      

More of a problem was that for the system to work, some math was required because the number from the under-bust measurement didn’t directly translate to the advertised bra size: What the buyer had to do was take the number and add 5 inches (12.7 cm) so if one’s under-bust measurement was 29” (73.7 cm), one (at least in theory) needed something with a 34” band (86.4 cm, the closest in the metric countries being the 85 cm range).  However, if the number was over 33” (83.8 cm), then one added only 3” (7.6 cm).  At that point, one needed to determine the appropriate cup.  This required a further measurement, one taken which represented the bust at its fullest projection, the somewhat misleadingly named “over-bust” number which was actually taken following the nipple line.  Many recommended taking it while wearing a bra but if that was a poor fit, that would hardly be helpful and the ideal method turned out to be (and usually this was necessary only if the volume was above a certain point) holding the breasts in place at the desired location while another did the measuring.  An ideal project then in which to involve one’s boyfriend or girlfriend, the only instructions needed being (1) the tape should rest lightly on the skin and (2) it should straight across the back, parallel to the floor.  The relationship between the over-bust measurement and the band size indicated the needed cup size: if the difference is 1” (2.54 cm) then it dictates an A cup; 2” (5.08 cm) and it’s a B cup and so on.  In many cases the simple under/over equation will work but not in all and some authorities have added additional measurements to be taken while in different positions, the 6 listed including lying flat on one's back and leaning forward so the breasts are perpendicular to the ground.  Definitely, the more dimensions which are taken, the more this seems a job for two.  

The math of cup sizes.

In practice it transpired the human body wasn’t so accommodating of production line rationalization but the system worked well enough for it to have endured for decades although only a percentage of women find an ideal fit without the help of an in-store fitter.  Quite what that number is depends on who is asked but it’s clear it’s a long way short of 100%.  The outcomes for bra wearers wasn’t helped by the lack of standardization in either the labeling or the technical specification of the cup size.  The inches vs cm thing was manageable but even in some countries which had long switched to the metric system, bras sizes were often expressed in inches (a similar aberration to the (almost) universal use of inches for certain products including the wheels used on cars and computer monitors) and because of the internationalized nature of the market with so much imported product, in many countries, both sizing regimes simultaneously were on sale, often in the same shop.  Helpfully, many displayed wall charts with conversion tables.  For some reason, in Australia and New Zealand, the decision was taken to use the dress sizing standard used in the antipodes (8 = 30”, 10 = 32” etc), thus bra sizes like 8C, 10D etc which local users presumably adapted to but it seems a needless complication.  Additionally, regardless of what country one was in, there was no guarantee a given size from one manufacturer would exactly align with that from another and in England, a comparison by a consumer organization revealed band and cup size differences existed in stated sizes even between various styles produced by the same manufacturer; not all 32Ds were created equal.  Given that, it seems obvious it’s best to seek the assistance of a fitter but in the internet age, customers found capitalism offered a handy on-line, home delivered alternative, the trick being to order half a dozen bras of slightly different declared sizes (eg 32C, 30D, 32E etc), the ones not quite right being able to returned for credit at no cost, the site paying all the P&H (postage & handling).  That approach has attracted much criticism because of the environmental impact and it’s a significant cost to the distributor and some have now moved to restrict the practice.

Nursing bras use specialized cups: Lindsay Lohan inspects the apparatus in Labor Pains (2009).

The most obvious specialized cup is that used with nursing bras which feature an arrangement whereby most of the cup’s fabric can be semi-separated from the superstructure, enabling breast-feeding without the need to remove the whole garment.  Between manufacturers, there are different implementations by which this is achieved but it’s not clear if chest-feeders (the preferred term among the woke to describe those who used to be called “breast-feeding women”) find one approach preferable or if some suit some more than others.  It may be simply that for manufacturers the economics of being able to adapt the specialized cups to the structures used for conventional bras are compelling, dictating the choice.  Chest-feeders presumably use whichever is most convenient and it may be a choice of some significance given how often heard is the complaint that the process is “tiring”.  To those who will never chest-feed it sounds relaxing rather than tiring but they all say it so it must be true.  Other variations include the demi-cup (also called the half-cup), the bullet cup, the adhesive cup, the padded cup and the seemingly paradoxical cupless (or open-cup), the last a niche market.  There are also bras for those who have lost a breast, the cups of which are “double-skinned” in that they feature an internal “pocket” into which a prosthetic form can be inserted.  Those who have had a unilateral mastectomy (the surgical removal of one breast) can choose a cup size to match the remaining one while those who underwent bilateral surgery can adopt whatever size they prefer.  There are now even single cup bras for those who have lost one breast but opt not to use a prosthetic, an approach which reflects both an aesthetic choice and a reaction against what is described in the US as the "medical-industrial complex", the point being that women who have undergone a mastectomy should not be subject to pressure either to use a prosthetic or agree to surgical reconstruction (a lucrative procedure for the industry).

The theory: Individual results may vary.