goblet

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English gobelet, also gobelot and goblot,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French gobelet (“drinking cup”),^{[5][6][3][7][8]} recorded from about 1260 in Old French,^[5] with Anglo-Norman gobelet recorded from 1372.^[9] The French word is a diminutive of gobel (“cup”),^[6][3][7][8] a form that the OED and Liberman note is known only later and as gobeau.^[5][10] Beyond that the origin is disputed: the OED derives it from gobe, the source of gob, with the suffix -el,^[5] Etymonline and the Concise Barnhart link it with the verb meaning to gulp down,^[11][12] and Klein with the sense "mouthful".^[8] The full Barnhart and Partridge trace it to a Gallo-Romance *gob (“beak, mouth”) of Gaulish origin,^[3][13] and Merriam-Webster and Collins to Celtic,^[4][14] comparing Irish gob (“beak, snout”) and Scottish Gaelic gob.^[4] Skeat derived it from Late Latin cupellus (“cup”),^[15] a view Partridge thought less probable,^[13] and Liberman points out that the Latin word does not explain the initial g.^[10] Weekley proposed the personal name Godbald, since these words are also French surnames.^[16] Hoad, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Liberman call the origin unknown.^[7][17][10] The OED compares Old Occitan gobelet, Catalan gobelet, Spanish cubilete and Medieval Latin gobelettus.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A drinking cup, in Cleanness, probably composed about 1380, in a manuscript of about 1400, and in a York will of 1391 that names a silver goblett.^[5][2][3] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded a little earlier, from 1372, as a large bowl-shaped drinking vessel on a foot.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Liberman suggests that the word may have begun as slang among drinkers, publicans or glass makers, and notes that its continuous record in English only begins about a century after its first appearance.^[10] Middle English used it also for the quantity a goblet held,^[2][18] and for an ornamental device on a glove or gauntlet, in the Morte Arthure.^[5][2] From 1519 it could be a conjuror's conical cup,^[5][18] a use also recorded in French from 1380.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as a bowl or cup holding "a large draught".^[19] In 1725 the name was given to a flower of that shape,^[5] and a Scottish use for a deep saucepan is recorded from 1739.^[5] A glass with a foot and a stem, the main modern sense, appears in American English in 1856,^[5] and the cup-like jar of a food blender, chiefly in British use, in 1970.^[5][20]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – a drinking cup, in Cleanness.^[5][3][2]
• c. 1440 – a device on a glove or gauntlet.^[5][2]
• 1519 – a conical cup used by conjurors (obsolete by 1785).^[5]
• 1725 – a goblet-shaped flower or part of a flower.^[5]
• 1739 – in Scotland, a deep saucepan.^[5]
• 1856 – a drinking glass with a foot and a stem.^[5]
• 1970 – the jug-shaped container of a blender.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A drinking glass with a foot and a stem: She raised her goblet of red wine.^{[6][20][4][5]}
2. (archaic) A bowl-shaped drinking cup of metal or glass, without handles, sometimes with a foot and a cover.^{[6][20][4][5]}
3. (British) The cup- or jug-shaped container of a blender or liquidizer.^[20][5][18]
4. A goblet-shaped flower or part of a flower.^[5][18]
5. (Scottish, rare) A small saucepan.^[5]
6. (obsolete, 1519–1785) A conical cup or thimble used by conjurors.^[5][18]

Word family

• goblet cell

Related words

• gob
• gobbet
• goglet

Usage notes

An obsolete goblet meant the same as gobbet, in use from 1530 to 1742 according to the OED, as an alteration of gobbet or a formation on gob with -let.^[5][18][4] In South Asia and the Caribbean a goblet is a porous earthenware vessel that keeps water cool by evaporation, recorded from 1827 as an alteration of goglet;^[5] Allsopp records it in Barbados and Guyana.^[21]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b c d Liberman, Anatoly, The Oxford Etymologist (blog column), OUPblog, blog.oup.com, p. "Drinking vessels: ‘goblet’", 16 January 2013
11. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
18. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
20. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
21. ^ Allsopp, Richard, ed. (1996), Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, Oxford: Oxford University Press