sneak-cup

English

Etymology

sneak +‎ cup

Noun

sneak-cup (plural sneak-cups)

1. (obsolete) Someone who is deemed to not drink their share during communal drinking sessions.
   • c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, act 2, scene 3:

     How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup: 'sblood, an / he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he / would say so.

   • 1892, Alice Morse Earle, “George and Martha Washington's China”, in China Collecting in America‎^[1], published 1906, pages 237–238:

     A sneaker was originally a smaller drinking mug or beaker than was ordinarily used, and was drunk from by a "sneak-cup," that contemptible creature who wished to shrink from his convivial duties by "balking his drink," or, to speak plainly, who wished to drink less than his companions fancied he ought to. It came gradually to be used as the name of a small mug, and as such frequently appears in the inventories of china made and sold at Worcester. Washington was no "sneak-cup," he boldly and liberally ordered large mugs instead of pint sneakers.