Word.ws English Dictionary

stirrup cups

stirrup cups is the plural of stirrup cup.

Meaning of stirrup cup

Noun

stirrup cup (plural stirrup cups)

  1. (historical) A parting drink taken after mounting one's horse.
    • […] after the Lord Keeper, the Master, and the domestics, had drunk doch-an-dorroch, or the stirrup-cup, in the liquors adapted to their various ranks, the cavalcade resumed its progress.1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, Tales of My Landlord, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, Volume 2, Chapter 4, pp. 85-86
  2. (broadly) A drink taken before leaving or parting company with someone.
    • Mrs. French insisted that they come into her room for a cordial, when she heard they were leaving. “You must have a stirrup cup,” Mrs. French said to Carol.1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 19, in The Price of Salt, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, published 2015, page 190
  3. A cup from which such a drink is taken.
    • Bishop Dancer is a man you would most quickly understand if you saw him on a Saturday in Camden, dressed in his red hunting jacket and high black boots, leaning forward to accept some hot toddy from the stirrup cup.1988, Peter Carey, chapter 65, in Oscar and Lucinda, New York: Vintage, published 2011

Questions about stirrup cups

What is stirrup cups the plural of?
Stirrup cups is the plural of stirrup cup.

Words near stirrup cups in the dictionary

  1. stirrings
  2. stirrup
  3. stirrup bone
  4. stirrup bones
  5. stirrup cup
  6. stirrup cups
  7. stirrup iron
  8. stirrup irons
  9. stirrup jar
  10. stirrup jars
  11. stirrup leather

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stirrup cups (page history and authors); stirrup cup (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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