Sc. Also 5 cop, 8–9 caup. [app. a later Sc. form of cop (as in tap, top, etc.):—OE. copp cap, vessel, or ON. kopp-r cup, small vessel used in the dairy; but the form caup, unless merely phonetic, raises difficulties. A med.L. caupus is rendered by Ælfric ‘cuppe.’]
1. A wooden bowl or dish, often with two ears or handles, formerly used as a drinking vessel.
1724. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), I. 91. There will be … brandy in stoups and in caps.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1818), I. 157. It is often drunk … out of a cap,… a wooden dish, with two ears or handles, about the size of a tea-saucer, and as shallow.
1785. Burns, Holy Fair, xxiii. How drink gaed round, in cogs and caups.
1868. G. Macdonald, R. Falconer, I. 272. A good slice of swack cheese with a cap of ale.
b. To kiss caps with: ‘to drink out of the same vessel with’ (Jam.); hence the kiss of a cap. To drink cap-out: to empty: see COP. Also proverb Between cap and lip.
1715. Lett., in Wodrow Corr. (1843), II. 115. They … got not so much as the kiss of a caup.
1737. Ramsay, Sc. Prov. (1776), 53 (Jam.). Meikle may fa’ between the cap and the lip.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xxix. ‘Drink clean cap-out, like Sir Hildebrand.’
1879. Jamieson, Sc. Dict., s.v., ‘I wadna kiss caps wi’ sic a fallow.’
2. A measure of quantity: formerly COP, q.v.
1879. Jamieson, Sc. Dict., Cap, Capfou’, Capfu’, the fourth part of a peck; as a capfu’ o’ meal, salt, etc.
3. Comb. cap-ale, ‘a kind of beer between table-beer and ale’ (Jam.); † cap-ambry, a cupboard: see COP-.
1864. A. McKay, Hist. Kilmarnock, 163. Sandy brewed within his own premises the cap-ale.
