A cup from which tea is drunk: usually of small or moderate size, with a handle.
1700. Congreve, Way of World, IV. xi. Let Mahometan Fools … be damned over Tea-Cups and Coffee.
1714. Addison, Lover, No. 10, ¶ 4. The fashion of the teacup … has run through a wonderful variety of colour, shape, and size.
1770. Goldsm., Des. Vill., 235. While broken tea-cups … Ranged o’er the chimney, glistened in a row.
1884. H. P. Spofford in Harper’s Mag., Nov., 889/1. In a sort of Oriental divination they always turned their ten-cups,… after the tea-drinking which they loved.
Mod. The subject has been mentioned ‘over the tea-cups’ [i.e., unofficially; speaking of the establishment of a public institution].
b. As much as a tea-cup contains, a teacupful.
1757. Pultney, in Phil. Trans., L. 81. She took something more than a tea-cup of the infusion.
c. Phr. A storm in a tea-cup: a great commotion in a circumscribed circle, or about a matter of small or only local importance: see STORM.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, xix. She has raised a storm in a tea-cup by her … unwarranted assault.
1884. Pall Mall G., 19 Sept., 4/1. M. Renan’s visit … to his birthplace in Brittany has raised a storm in the clerical teacup.
1900. G. C. Brodrick, Mem. & Impr., 360. Here the storm in the Oxford tea-cup raged as furiously as in the open sea.
d. attrib. Tea-cup-and-saucer comedy, comedy of a mild and ‘proper’ character.
1830. Tennyson, Talking Oak, xvi. Beauties, that were born In teacup-times of hood and hoop, Or while the patch was worn.
1895. Athenæum, 8 June, 748/2. ‘Tea-cup-and-saucer comedy’ … was the invention of Thomas Purnell.
1898. Westm. Gaz., 30 March, 2/3. A little too much like … the tea-cup business of Alice in Wonderland.
1903. Daily Chron., 23 Sept., 3/3. Young girls … find a gentle interest in her mild heroics of tea-cup-and-saucer comedy.
Hence Teacupful, as much as a tea-cup will contain. (Pl. teacupfuls; erron. tea-cups full.)
1705. Phil. Trans., XXV. 1790. [I] took about a Tea-cupful.
1789. Pilkington, View Derby., I. viii. 355. The dose 2 tea-cups full or more.
1838. Q. Jrnl. Agric., IX. 290. A salt-spoonful of salt and a tea-cupful of warm water.
