Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A treatment in which evacuated glass cups are applied to intact or scarified skin in order to draw blood toward or through the surface. It was used for disorders associated with an excess of blood, one of the four humors of medieval physiology.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In surgery, the application of the cupping-glass. There are two modes of cupping: one in which the part is scarified and some blood taken a way to relieve congestion or inflammation of internal parts, called
wet cupping , or more generally simply cupping; and a second, termed dry cupping, in which there is no scarification and no blood is abstracted. - n. A concavity in the end of a cylindrical casting, produced by the shrinkage of the metal.
- n. A shallow countersink.
- n. The taking of a concave form, as tobacco leaves do in drying, when placed face to back. Cupping is prevented by stringing the leaves face to face and back to back.
Wiktionary
- n. medicine, archaic The operation of drawing blood to or from the surface of the person by forming a partial vacuum over the spot.
- n. medicine, archaic A similar operation for drawing pus from an abscess.
- n. medicine Fire cupping, a traditional therapeutic treatment called in which heated glass cups are applied to the skin, supposedly to draw blood towards the surface.
- n. The taking of a small amount of a beverage such as tea or coffee into the mouth in order to taste it; a session where this is done.
- v. present participle of cup.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Med.) The operation of drawing blood to or from the surface of the person by forming a partial vacuum over the spot. Also, sometimes, a similar operation for drawing pus from an abscess.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a treatment in which evacuated cups are applied to the skin to draw blood through the surface
Examples
“Moreover, one should not be cupped in very hot weather nor in very cold weather; and the best season for cupping is springtide.”
“Also known as cupping or fire cupping, it was used by many Eastern European Jews.”
“It was something called cupping, a treatment which you can read about in old medical text-books but which till then I had vaguely thought of as one of those things they do to horses.”
“The Tijuanan has to prime his body, nose, and mouth for the so-called cupping that's about to commence.”
“However, it can be associated with glaucomatous cupping, which is the formation of an ocular-disk depression seen in some cases of glaucoma.”
“It is also called cupping, clapping, or tapotement.”
“Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal Acupuncturist Xin He demonstrates a traditional Chinese therapy called cupping.”
“Although normally performed by venesection, or the cutting of a vein, in some cases other techniques, such as cupping, applying leeches, cautery, or blistering might be called for. 59”
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
“Testing coffee, or "cupping," is a meticulous affair.”
“Apparently, after going on his lecture tour through the American Midwest after his last visit to Toronto, Conan Doyle had returned in order to find a practitioner of the Oriental treatment for consumption known as "cupping".”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cupping’.
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word set 12
plasmasphere, cockatrice, delimitable, precipitancy, trellising, thermochromism, cadenza, tentaculiferous, fluctiferous, circumambient, loblolly, trailing edge and 142 more...
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Only on Wordie/Wordnik
Okay, mostly on Wordie. But it's more fun here anyway.
brannock device, polari, stupidhead, in toto, nounal, flustrated, stuffocate, firkin, full-assed, placeholder name, pro-text, cheesequake and 408 more...
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Words of the Times
Words discovered while reading The New York Times, each with a citation from the paper.
testilying, ghost talk, apneist, solastalgia, izakaya, hooker, telectroscope, airflyte, phomance, bromhidrosis, stinky feet, cupping and 482 more...
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A list
clench, shudder, clamp, twisting, sharply, thrusting, crashing, pulsing, curling, thrumming, rippling, wrench and 94 more...
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Antiquated Quackery
Old-fashioned and obsolete treatments, medicines, etc.
A companion to my 'Antiquated Ailments' list.lobotomy, trepanning, bloodletting, nostrum, panacea, elixir, electroconvulsive..., scarificator, snake oil, leech, laudanum, amulet and 13 more...
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quackery
snake oil & leeches
nostrum, quack, charlatan, snake oil, cure-all, liniment, patent medicine, panacea, shill, alchemy, humours, leech and 16 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cupping.
dontcry No, but if you hum a few bars.... Jun 2, 2008
yarb But not all crooks have necks. Does anyone remember Dope Wars? Jun 2, 2008
reesetee No wonder they never have any money. Jun 1, 2008
dontcry Necks have crooks. May 31, 2008
bilby Depends who you have been kissing, ptero. May 31, 2008
pterodactyl *thinks*
Do necks have pits? May 31, 2008
reesetee Ooh, they're fun to say. Armipts, legipts, limbipts.... *humming*
Clearly, I should have something better to do. May 30, 2008
bilby He flipts
She skipts
It blipts
for armipts. May 30, 2008
gangerh I think, c_b, that armipts are akin to legipts, both being limbipts. May 30, 2008
yarb Nice! May 29, 2008
dontcry here May 29, 2008
yarb Hands up who can show us their armpits! May 29, 2008
chained_bear Dude. Sex fetishes with armipts are just disgusting...
Uhh... what are armipts, anyway? ;)
(just kidding, yarb!) May 29, 2008
yarb It sounds like some kind of sex fetish involving armipts. May 29, 2008
bilby Agreed. Cupping sounds like harvesting blood from tame vampires. May 29, 2008
dontcry Cupping? Eeeuuw! May 29, 2008
john "Though wine tastings seem to have become less pretentious in recent years, it’s still rare to hear a top varietal compared to Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. But at coffee tastings — known to aficionados as cuppings — there is no prescribed lexicon, and a lot more room for whimsy."
The New York Times, Do I Detect a Hint of ... Joe?, by Hannah Wallace, May 29, 2008 May 29, 2008