Word.ws English Dictionary

cup-and-ball

cup-and-ball noun: a traditional children's toy consisting of a hand-held wooden cup with a ball attached by a string. The player jerks the ball into the air and attempts to catch it in the cup.

cup-and-ball: a traditional children's toy consisting of a hand-held wooden cup with a ball attached by a string....
Image: DC, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cup-and-ball (plural cup-and-balls or cups-and-balls)

  1. A traditional children's toy consisting of a hand-held wooden cup with a ball attached by a string. The player jerks the ball into the air and attempts to catch it in the cup.
    • When I was at Motiers, I used to employ myself in making laces with my neighbors, and were I again to mix with the world, I would always carry a cup-and-ball in my pocket; I should sometimes play with it the whole day, that I might not be constrained to speak when I had nothing to discourse about...1782, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by Samuel William Orson, The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book V, published 1903
    Synonyms:
    bilboquet

cup-and-ball meaning in Tamil

cup-and-ball in Tamil

குதைகுழிப் பொருத்து

Synonyms of cup-and-ball

Forms of cup-and-ball

pluralcup-and-balls
pluralcups-and-balls

Questions about cup-and-ball

What does cup-and-ball mean?
Cup-and-ball means a traditional children's toy consisting of a hand-held wooden cup with a ball attached by a string. The player jerks the ball into the air and attempts to catch it in the cup.
What is cup-and-ball in Tamil?
Cup-and-ball in Tamil is குதைகுழிப் பொருத்து. See Cup-and-ball meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is cup-and-ball?
Cup-and-ball is a noun.
What is the plural of cup-and-ball?
The plural of cup-and-ball is cup-and-balls.

Words near cup-and-ball in the dictionary

  1. cup that cheers
  2. cup tie
  3. cup ties
  4. cup towel
  5. cup towels
  6. cup-and-ball
  7. cup-and-balls
  8. cup-and-saucer plant
  9. cup-and-saucer plants
  10. cup-bearer
  11. cup-bearers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cup-and-ball (page history and authors); cup-and-ball (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cup-and-ball.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cup-and-ball. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.