chalice

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English chalice, also chalis,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman chalice,^[3][4][5][6] from central Old French chalice, a form beside calice,^[7][3][8] from Latin calix (“cup”), accusative calicem.^[3][7][4] The Latin word had reached English several times before.^[9][7] An early, pre-Christian borrowing in West Germanic, Proto-West Germanic *kalik, gave early Old English celic, beside Old Saxon kelik, Middle Dutch kelc and Old High German kelihh.^[7][9] It was borrowed again in Christian use as calic, also cælic and cælc,^[7][10][3] which gave early Middle English calch.^[2][7] In the 12th century these gave way to calice and caliz, from Old North French,^[7][3][4] and before 1350 those gave way in turn to chalice.^[7] The OED notes that French itself went the other way, keeping French calice under the influence of ecclesiastical Latin.^[7] The further origin of the Latin noun is unsettled.^[3][11] Barnhart and Klein connect it with Ancient Greek κύλιξ (kúlix, “cup, drinking cup”),^[4][8] and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged with a Sanskrit word for a pot;^[4][5] de Vaan calls the Sanskrit link doubtful,^[11] and he and Etymonline allow that Latin and Greek took the word from another language.^[11][3] Skeat calls it allied to calyx but not the same word,^[6] and Ayto and Collins call the Greek word behind calyx its relative.^[9][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A drinking cup, and the cup of the Eucharist, in Old English: Barnhart gives before 830, in the Vespasian Psalter,^[4] where the OED also has its first quotation.^[7] The form chalice itself appears at the end of the 13th century according to Ayto,^[9] before 1325 in the Cursor Mundi according to Barnhart,^[4] and in the early 14th century according to Etymonline.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old English it was both a general word for a cup and, in the Gospels, the cup of the Eucharist,^[7] and the Middle English Dictionary still lists an ordinary drinking vessel first.^[2] Anglo-Norman had both uses by the early 12th century.^[13] The figurative use, with reference to scriptural passages about a cup, is also Old English, in the West Saxon Gospels at Luke 22:42.^[7] The general sense is now poetic or elevated.^[7][12][14] Johnson (1755) quoted Shakespeare's Hamlet for "a cup" and noted that it was generally used for a cup in acts of worship.^[15] The poisoned chalice, something that looks attractive but is likely to bring trouble, goes back to one in Shakespeare's Macbeth, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins.^[16] The word was applied to the cup of a flower from 1650,^[7] to a cup-shaped lamp globe in 1902,^[7] and among Rastafarians to a sacred pipe for smoking cannabis, from 1980.^[17]

Timeline

• before 830 – a cup, in an Old English form.^[4][7]
• 1102 – the form calice.^[4]
• before 1200 – the form calch, the chalice of the mass.^[2]
• c. 1300 – the form caliz.^[4]
• before 1325 – the form chalice.^[4]
• 1650 – the cup of a flower.^[7]
• 1902 – a cup-shaped globe for diffusing artificial light.^[7]
• 1980 – a Rastafarian pipe for smoking cannabis.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. The cup that holds the wine at the Eucharist or Mass.^{[5][12][18][7]}
2. (poetic) A drinking cup or goblet: He raised a silver chalice to the bride.^[12][14][7]
3. The cup of a flower, or a cup-shaped calyx.^{[5][12][14][7]}
4. poisoned chalice: something that seems attractive but is likely to cause problems.^[16][14]
5. (slang) A pipe for smoking marijuana, sacred among Rastafarians.^[17]

Word family

• chaliced

Related words

• calyx
• kylix

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
11. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
14. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt