Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🍼 A child's cup 😜 A childish insult
sippy cup

sippy cup

1 5.4
An object given to someone as a joke to show they act like a child
  • noun
  • /ˈsɪpi kʌp/
  • Offensive
translation icon : [ofensivo] vaso para bebés
  • He joked that his friends would laugh if they saw him drinking from a sippy cup at the party.

Examples

  • Like, Oh my God, sippy cups are even more disgusting.

  • He saw an old sippy cup on the counter yesterday (from his lunch earlier), and he screamed and cried for something to drink.

    Blog text (30)

  • Rolling down the street, sipping my sippy cup, sipping on my mom's boobies, laid back.

  • After he spilled his drink all over the table, I teased him by handing him a sippy cup to use instead.

  • When she acted childish during the meeting, her colleagues started calling her their 'sippy cup' member of the team.

Synonyms

cup
vssippy cup
846 1.0

A small open container with a handle for drinking liquids

is used to mock a person as childish or unable to cope
sipper
vssippy cup
1 3.2

A small cup with a spout or straw for drinking easily

is given to someone as a joke to show they are childish or helpless

Surface Forms

sippy cup singular
sippy cups plural

Morphology

sippy + cup

The compound is partly compositional: 'sippy' derives from 'sip' (a diminutive/child-directed form) and 'cup' is literal, so a learner who knows the constituents can infer a child-oriented drinking cup. However, the insulting/pragmatic usage (giving such a cup to an adult to infantilize them) is an extended, culture-specific figurative use not directly predictable from the parts, and 'sippy' is not a standard dictionary headword, so full meaning requires exposure.

Etymology

Sippy cup is used as a joke when someone gives an adult the small cup you sip from as a child. Because this picture makes the person look young or helpless, the name is used to call someone 'childish' or 'unable to cope'.