cupă

Forms

cupă f (plural cupe)^[1] MDA2 records a rare Moldavian plural cupi; the DA quotes „două cupi” “two cups” from the Uricariul.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin cuppa (“cup”), a late form of Latin cūpa (“tub, cask”) known only from glosses, which took the sense “cup, goblet” across the Romance languages.^[4][5][6][1] Its Romance relatives include Italian coppa, French coupe, Spanish copa and Portuguese copa.^[6][7] De Vaan compares Sanskrit कूप (kūpa, “pit, well”).^[8][1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian cupã, Megleno-Romanian cupă “a milk pail; a measure” and Istro-Romanian cupę “a wooden measuring vessel”.^[4][9]

The town sense, a drinking vessel of glass or metal with a stem, was taken again from neighbouring languages: DELR names Hungarian kupa and Modern Greek κούπα (koúpa), and later the French word.^[4][3] The sense “a measure of liquid” follows the Hungarian word.^[4][10] Tamás thinks a South Slavic source is also possible for the drinking cup.^[10] Ciorănescu keeps the Latin origin for the old senses and lists Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ruthenian, Turkish and Hungarian words as possible sources of the sense “glass”, all of them from the same Latin word.^[5] The Hungarian word itself comes from the Italian word.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1509, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[12] DELR's first record is the Palia de la Orăștie of 1582.^[4] MDA2 starts with the Anonymus Caransebesiensis glossary (c. 1650–1700), where Kupă is glossed with Latin cupa.^[2][3] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has Joseph say: „Și cupa mea cea de argint să o puneți în sacul celui mai tânăr” “and put my silver cup in the sack of the youngest” (Genesis 44:2).^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the countryside the word kept the sense of a wooden vessel: the hollowed wooden pail that shepherds hang in the milking bucket so that the milk does not splash.^[12][2][3] From this came the names of other scoops: a bucket on a mill wheel, the sail of a windmill, a mason's scoop for lime and a scoop for maize flour.^[3][2] In Transylvania the hollows in a horse's teeth, by which its age is judged up to six years, are cupe, and the word is a joking name for the head: cupă goală “empty head”.^[3][2]

In towns the word meant a drinking vessel of glass or metal, and after French usage a stemmed glass for wine or champagne.^[3][4] In Transylvania it was also a measure of wine of about one and a half litres.^[12][10] The trophy for a sports competition, and the competition itself, are modern senses.^[13][2] Plants are named after the shape of their flowers: cupe is a stemless gentian, cupa-vacii the hedge bindweed.^[13][12]

At the princely courts the cupar was the cupbearer's assistant, recorded from 1591 together with cupăresc, and cupărie was his office.^[4][5]

Timeline

• 1509 – first record, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[12]
• 1582 – in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[4]
• 1591 – cupar “cupbearer” and cupăresc “of the cupbearer”.^[4]
• 1631 – cupărie “the office of cupbearer”.^[4]
• c. 1650 – Kupă in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, which also has the diminutives cupiță and cupșoară.^[2][4]
• 1688 – „cupa mea cea de argint” “my silver cup” in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 44:2).^[12]
• 1741 – cupărit, a tax in kind for the princely cellar.^[4]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda gives “a liquid measure” and “a small pot”.^[14]
• 1850 – cupă “hearts” at cards, a separate borrowing from Greek, in Alecsandri.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cup or goblet, wider than it is deep, often with a stem; a stemmed glass for wine or spirits; also its contents.^[13][1]
2. (figurative) The calyx of a flower.^[13][2]
3. (popular) A liquid measure of more than a litre; a jug that holds this much.^[13][2]
4. A trophy in the shape of a cup given to the winner of a sports competition; the competition itself, often a knockout tournament.^[13][2][1]
5. A metal bucket on an elevator or another machine, for lifting grain, earth or stone.^[13]
6. (regional) A hollowed wooden vessel used by shepherds at the sheepfold when milking.^[2][12]
7. (regional) A bucket of a water wheel; the sail of a windmill.^[2][16]
8. A plant with a very short stem and one azure flower, a gentian;^[13] cupa-vacii is the hedge bindweed.^[13]

Word family

• cupar
• cupăresc
• cupărie
• cupărit
• cupiță

Related words

• Aromanian cupã
• Latin cuppa

Usage notes

DEX lists two more nouns spelled cupă.^[13] Cupă² is the suit of hearts in playing cards; it comes from Modern Greek κούπα (koúpa), a Greek word of Latin origin, and is recorded from 1850.^[13][15][5] Cupă³ is a cut in tailoring and the cutting of a pack of cards; it comes from French coupe and is recorded from 1978.^[13][17][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 574
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. cupă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. cupă
5. ^ a b c d Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. cupă
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2409
7. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 39
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 331
10. ^ a b c Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 284
11. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cupă
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 260
14. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 155
15. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. cupă²
16. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 378
17. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. cupă
18. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. cupă³