A cup is a small container used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape and an open "mouth", and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, polystyrene, plastic, lacquerware, or other materials. Normally, a cup is brought in contact with the mouth for drinking, distinguishing it from other tableware and drinkware forms such as jugs; however, a straw and/or lid may also be used. They also often have handles, though many do not, including beakers which have no handle or stem, or small bowl shapes which are very common in Asia.
There are many specific terms for different types of cups in different cultures, many depending on the type of drink they are mostly used for, and the material they are made of; in particular, cups made of glass are mostly called a "glass" in contemporary English. Cups of different styles may be used for different types of liquids or other foodstuffs (e.g, teacups and measuring cups), in different situations (e.g, at water stations or in ceremonies and rituals), or for decoration.Rigby 2003: p. 573–574.
The history of cups goes back well into prehistory, initially mostly as handleless beakers or bowls, and they have been found in most cultures across the world in a variety of shapes and materials. While simple cups have been widely spread across societies, high-status cups in expensive materials have been very important status symbols since at least the Bronze Age, and many have been found in burials.
Modern household shapes of cups generally lack a stem, but this was not always the case. The large metal standing cup or covered cup with a base, stem and usually a cover, was an important prestige piece in medieval houses that could afford them, and often used as a "welcome cup" or for toasts. The form survives in modern sporting trophies, and in the chalices of church liturgy. The 15th-century silver Lacock Cup is a rare English secular survival. These were the sort of cups offered by cup-bearers, historically often an important office in courts.
Definitions The English word "cup" has meant a drinking vessel since at least 1000 AD. The definition of a cup is fluid, and is likely to be wider in specialist areas such as archaeology than in modern common speech. As an example, Anna Wierzbicka (1984) notes that in the 1970s the "older generation" expected a cup to be made of porcelain and have both a handle and a saucer, so that the plastic cup with neither a handle, nor a saucer, was not a "real cup", while the "younger generation" made no such distinction, and used "coffee cup" or "teacup" to indicate the traditional cups. Twelve-year-olds had two different shapes of a cup in mind, one for hot liquids, one for juices.
Names for different types of cups vary regionally and may overlap (in American English "cups" include "mugs"). Any transparent cup, regardless of actual composition, is more likely to be called a "glass"; therefore, while a flat-bottomed cup made of paper is a "paper cup", a transparent one of very similar shape, is likely to be called a "tumbler", or one of many terms for glasses, instead. Penelope Stock, a lexicographer, found that cups, mugs and glasses are "near-synonyms", although "sufficient differences" can be found that divide them into different groups.
Wierzbicka and Keith Allan (in his work "On Cup", 2020) compare definitions of the cup: + Cup definitions Trait William Labov Jerrold J. Katz OED Cliff Goddard Webster's 2nd ed. Shape Tapering, circular Vertically oriented, "upwardly concave" Hemispherical Thin round sides, smooth top edge, flat bottom Open, bowl-shaped Proportions Similar width and depth Height close to the top diameter that is greater than the bottom one Small Not big, bottom narrower than top Small Function Drinking hot liquids Drinking Drinking Drinking hot liquids with one hand "Chiefly" drinking, commonly used for hot liquids Material Opaque "vitreous" Hard and smooth Handle One Optional One, in "many things" Optional, one or more Saucer Present Present Common Stem Uncommon (usually found in the chalice) Optional Lid Uncommon, not part of the "cup" itself Optional
Many languages − including English, French, Italian, Polish, Russian, German − use two separate words for mugs and cups. Wierzbicka suggests that this situation is due to a slightly different functionality: the traditional cups are designed for drinking while sitting down at the table, while the mug is supposed to be used anywhere. This, in her opinion, explains all the specific features: the saucer of the cup helps to protect the table surface, but is an inconvenience away from the table; the tapered shape of the cup accommodates the saucer, the cylindrical design of the mug is due to the absence of the saucer; larger handle of a mug allows carrying the mug around when putting it down is not an option; thicker walls of a mug allow cupping it with a second hand for convenience and reduce the chance of the mug being broken during long periods of handling; sitting at the table implies a more formal occasion, so cups are made to be more elegant, and sold in sets (like a tea set or a coffee service); mugs are informal and usually sold individually. a mug holds more liquid than the cup, as the latter is used in a close proximity of a teapot anyhow. Since limiting the area of the exposed surface of the liquid helps keeping the temperature, this increase in volume is achieved through mug being taller, while tapered cups are lower for stability.
History
Cups have been used since the Stone Age and have been found at archeological sites throughout the world.British Museum database search on "Neolithic cup" A large number of the earliest cups are excavated from burials, and may have held offerings or supplies for the afterlife. Cups do not feature strongly in the earliest pottery found in most areas; the wares were thick and heavy, as were the carved stone vessels found in several early cultures. Probably cups in organic materials that have now decomposed, such as wood, bamboo and dried gourds were widely used. Large shells and birds' eggs have been used in some areas almost up to the present. Very simple single-use kulhar cups in unglazed terracotta, and sometimes unfired clay, are still used in South Asia, now mainly at tea stalls, and are very similar to those found at sites of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilization.
The Bell Beaker culture, is an important archaeological culture named after the distinctive inverted-bell pottery beaker cups it used,So it struck early archaeologists. Actually it might be said that only the bottom of the beakers is bell-like; at the top nearly all have a "waist" below a flaring "lip". marking the beginning of the European Bronze Age from around 2800 BC. The Ringlemere Cup is a solid gold cup, with handle, from around 1600 BC, with the Rillaton Gold Cup one of two such cups known from England, with a handful of other locations and materials (such as the Hove amber cup) making up the "unstable" (round-bottomed) cups in precious materials from the Bronze Age.
Animal horns must often have been used as cups from very early on, and the rhyton is a cup that imitates their shape, to a greater or lesser degree, in metal or pottery. It was the general elite type of cup throughout the Mediterranean in the Iron Age, from Greece to Ancient Persia and beyond. Only some had feet or bases that allowed them to be rested on a flat surface. Large numbers were decorated with animal heads, or included the figure of an animal.
Other than the rhyton, ancient Greek drinking cup shapes had mostly very wide and shallow bowls, usually on short stems and with two handles, generally oriented horizontally, along the same plane as the mouth of the cup, rather than at 90 degrees to it, as in modern teacups. Survivals in ancient Greek pottery are numerous, and often brilliantly painted.Burn, 87 The most important shapes are the kylix, kantharos, skyphos, lip cup, and the breast-shaped mastos with no base.See entries in Gisela M. A. Richter, Marjorie J. Milne, Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases, Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, 1935, fully online.
The Roman Empire used cups throughout Europe, with "goblet"-type shapes with shortish stems, or none, which was preferred for luxury cups in silver,Burn, 202–203 like the Warren Cup, or Roman glass, such as the Lycurgus Cup in color-changing glass, or the spectacular carved-glass cage cups. By the 2nd century AD even the wealthy tended to prefer drinking from glass, as it added no taste to the drink.Burn, 201–204
An ancient shape of a cup used in various parts of Eurasia was the "flanged cup" with either one or two flat horizontal strips attached to part of the top of the cup, acting as handles. These are found as grave goods in elite burials from around the Warring States Period (c. 475 to 221 BC), in Chinese lacquerware (wood coated with resin from a tree) with two flanges at the sides of an ovoid cup. These are also called "eared cups" (耳杯) and "winged goblets"."Decorated eared cup", Princeton Art Museum A form with a flange on only one side appears in ancient Persian silver, and then later in Chinese porcelain, apparently gradually developing into a shape for brush-washers on the calligrapher's desk."White Stoneware Flanged Cup", Jin dynasty, 12th – 13th century, Ben Janssens Oriental Art
Most ancient types of cup from the Americas were pottery, but around the Gulf of Mexico, Native American societies used the shells of the Horse conch for drinking cups, among other purposes.Atlantic City Aquarium, Horse conch . Accessed April 26, 2014 The tall, decorated and slightly waisted qiru or keru of Andean civilizations first appears in the Early Intermediate Period (100–600 AD). They seem to have been high-status objects. Maya elites drank from elaborately painted pottery beakers such as the Fenton Vase and Princeton Maya Vase with God L.By convention, these cups are named "vases" or "cylinder vases". Ancient Greek pottery cups are also counted among Greek "vases"
In what is now the south-eastern US, traces of Yaupon tea containing caffeine have been found in pottery cups of an unusual shape: straight-sided, with a single thick spike as a handle near the top, opposite a slight pouring lip.
In the Early Middle Ages glass remained in production in northern Europe, especially Germany, probably as a luxury material. Anglo-Saxon glass had several types of cup, most shared with continental areas, including "palm cups" with no flat bottom, claw beakers, glass horns, and different types of beaker.
In the European Middle Ages the shapes of most ordinary cups were closer to mugs, tankards, and goblets rather than modern cups, in wood, pottery, or sometimes boiled leather. But the elite preferred cups with stems, and often covers, in metal, with glass a less common alternative. Large "ceremonial" or feasting cups, sometimes called grace cups or "welcome cups", and drinking horns, including ivory, with metal mounts, were important prestige pieces, typically too large to drink from all evening, so passed around or drunk from once. The name for the very wide ancient Greek wine-cup kylix ended up via Latin as chalice, typically a handle-less goblet in metal, used in the Catholic mass, but also a secular shape. Many individual examples have served both secular and liturgical uses over their history.The Lacock Cup and Royal Gold Cup for example