foam cup
1
1.6
- noun
- /foʊm kʌp/
- US
:
taza de espuma
- After the picnic, we disposed of our empty foam cups in the recycling bin.
- coffee in a foam cup
- plastic foam cup
Examples
-
You carried steaming black coffee in a foam cup.
Fiction book (1998) -
She sipped her iced tea from a foam cup as she enjoyed the sunny afternoon.
-
The children drank hot chocolate from foam cups during the school field trip.
Synonyms
A disposable cup made from Styrofoam that keeps drinks hot or cold
How Insulating
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'foam' (a material) with 'cup' (a drinking container), indicating a cup made of foam. Material+object compositions are common and cross-linguistically accessible, so a B1 learner who knows both words should be able to infer this meaning.
Etymology
Foam cup comes from the simple idea of a cup made from soft, white foam. Because that foam is very light and helps keep drinks warm, people began to call these 'throw-away' cups foam cups, so the phrase now means 'a lightweight, disposable drinking container'.