See elf-cup in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"ref": "1887, William Delisle Hay, The Fungus-hunter's Guide, and Field Memorandum-book, London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowry and Co., page 156:",
"text": "Elf-cups; All terrestrial species; all seasons; (poor eating of themselves).",
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"ref": "1936 March 21, The Weekly Times, Melbourne, page 43, column 5:",
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"Any of various species of fungus with a cup-shaped sporocarp, such as scarlet cup, Sarcoscypha coccinea."
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"ref": "1828, William Carr, The Dialect of Craven, volume I, London: William Crofts, page 232:",
"text": "HOLY-STAAN, A stone with a natural hole in it, which was frequently suspended by a string from the tester of a bed, or from the roof of a cow house, as an infallible prevention of injury from witches!! In Scotland these stones are called elf-cups.",
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"(UK, dialect) A stone with a hole pierced by dripping water."
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"ref": "1880 May 18, Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, page 90:",
"text": "Elf cups are often found in Sweden on the covering blocks of our dolmens. The dolmens belong in Sweden exclusively to the Stone-age, but I am not quite sure if the cup-marks on them can be ascribed to so high an antiquity. The cup-bearing blocks could be visible in other prehistoric periods as they are to-day, and in that way they do not necessarily belong to the times of erection of the dolmen itself.",
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"ref": "1881 May 14, The Leader, Melbourne, page 3, column 2:",
"text": "Rude pillars of Neolithic age with the little cup-shaped hollows mentioned above, occur all over the Continent, from the Pyrenees to Scandinavia, and are known as \"fairy-cups,\" \"elf-cups,\" marmites du diable, and \"stones of the dead\".",
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"ref": "1828, William Carr, The Dialect of Craven, volume I, London: William Crofts, page 232:",
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"type": "quotation"
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"word": "elf-cup"
}
Download raw JSONL data for elf-cup meaning in English (3.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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