cup tie
- noun
- /kʌp taɪ/
- Jargon
- Our local team is preparing for a challenging cup tie against a well-known rival next weekend.
Examples
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How much has Ferrer playing all those Davis Cup ties and matches cost him in terms of critical results on the ATP Tour?
Blog text (17) -
Every away Cup tie...
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It's cup tie.
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He was a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Tennis Association's marketing and communications division, where he worked as the press officer for 22 U.S. Davis Cup ties, three Olympic tennis teams, and was an integral part of the USTA media services team for 14 US Opens.
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The fourth round FA Cup tie will determine which team moves on to the next stage of the competition.
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In the intense Davis Cup tie, the teams fought hard for victory, showcasing their best players.
How Important
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is partially compositional: 'cup' can denote a cup competition and 'tie' (in British football) means a match, so together they yield 'a match in a cup competition'. However, many learners know 'tie' primarily as 'a draw' or may not know the British use 'tie'='match', making the specific sports sense not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
The phrase cup tie comes from football cups where cup means the tournament and tie is an old word for a game between two teams — imagine two teams tied together by the draw to play each other. So a cup tie is simply a 'match' in a cup competition where the winner goes on and the loser is out.