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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

chalice.

A large drinking cup, often having a stem and base and used especially for formal occasions and religious ceremonies.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈt͡ʃæl.ɪs/UK, US
  1. A large drinking cup, often having a stem and base and used especially for formal occasions and religious ceremonies.

  2. A kind of water-cooled pipe for smoking cannabis.

Where this word comes from

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-, 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-, 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. Possible doublet of calyx and kelch. Compare Sumerian 𒃲(GAL).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.