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''chalice'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125123911-00-⌔

chalice - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

chalice (plural chalices)

  • A large drinking cup, often having a stem and base and used especially for formal occasions and religious ceremonies.
    • ✤ Synonym: goblet
    • ✤ [W]e but teach/Bloody Inſtructions, which, being taught, returne/To plague th’Inuentor. This euen-handed Iuſtice/Commends th’ Ingredience of our poyſon’d Challice/To our owne lips.1
  • A kind of water-cooled pipe for smoking cannabis.

Etymology

From Middle English chalis, from Anglo-Norman, from Old French chalice, collateral form of calice, borrowed from Latin calix, calicem (“cup”), of uncertain etymology. In view of Umbrian skalçeta (“sacrifical vessel”), perhaps from a Proto-Italic ﹡(s)kalik-,2 from Proto-Indo-European ﹡(s)kel-. Pokorny considered a parallel formation in Sanskrit कलश (kaláśa-, “(water-)jar, tub, pot, dish”), for Proto-Indo-European ﹡kel-eḱ-,3 but De Vaan finds this unlikely. Alternatively, borrowed from Ancient Greek κύλιξ (kúlix) or an unattested variant thereof, maybe with contamination from κάλυξ (kálux, “shell, calyx”), but it is also possible that all were borrowed from related substrate words.2 Possible doublet of calyx and kelch. Compare Sumerian 𒃲 (GAL).

Pronunciation

  • (UK, US) IPA: /ˈt͡ʃæl.ɪs/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ælɪs

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene vii], page 135, column 1: ↩

  2. De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “calix, -icis”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 83–84 ↩ ↩2

  3. Pokorny, Julius (1959), “7. kel- (kol-, kl-)”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, pages 550–551 ↩

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Secondary

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