English

Noun

stoup ‎(plural stoups)

1. (obsolete) A bucket. [14th-20th c.]
2. (archaic) A mug or drinking vessel. [from 16th c.]
   • 1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act V scene 2, First Folio 1623:

     Set me the Stopes of wine vpon that Table.

   • 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford 2010, p. 57:

     …we ran up stairs together without speaking, and were instantly in the apartment I had left, where a stoup of wine still stood untasted.

3. A receptacle for holy water, especially a basin set at the entrance of a church. [from 16th c.]
   • 1936, Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, Faber & Faber 2007, p. 26:

     He was seen [...] bathing in the holy water stoup as if he were its single and beholden bird, pushing aside weary French maids and local tradespeople with the impatience of a soul in physical distress.

   • 1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:

     But, though I liked Morgan well enough, I did not greatly care for his smell, which, incredibly, considering his agnosticism, was not unlike that of stale water in a church stoup.

   • 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance, Faber & Faber 2004 (Avignon Quintet), p. 810:

     She saw nobody for the moment so that she entered the church formally dipping her fingers in the holy water stoup and signing herself.

Anagrams

• POTUS
• pouts
• spout
• tupos
• upsot
• USPTO