quaich

From Scots quaich, from Scottish Gaelic cuach (“bowl, goblet”), from Old Irish cuäch (“goblet”), from Proto-Celtic *kaɸukos (“cup, bowl, vessel”).

• IPA^(key): /kweɪx/, /kweɪk/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /kwex/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -eɪx

quaich (plural quaichs or quaiches)

1. (Scotland, historical) A traditional shallow, two-handled cup of Scottish origin symbolizing friendship, originally used to toast the arrival or departure of a visitor.
   • 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Third. The Hostel, or Inn.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza XXVIII, page 101:

     The quaighs were deep, the liquor strong, / And on the tale the yeoman throng, / Had made a comment sage and long, [...]

   • 1947 [1939], Ernst Jünger, translated by Stuart Hood, On the Marble Cliffs, New Directions, translation of Auf den Marmorklippen (in German), →LCCN, →OCLC, page 13:

     Every evening through all the summer Lampusa put out for them before her rock-hewn kitchen a silver quaich of milk; then she summoned the creatures with a low call.

   • 1994, John A. Hyman, Silver at Williamsburg: Drinking Vessels, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, page 48,

     A quaich was an ideal gift when made from the timber of the fifteenth-century Alloway Kirk, which, "as you will have read in 'Tam O'Shanter', was a ruin in [Robert] Burns day but had the roof nearly intact until the turn of that century, (18th-19th). The rafters and other load bearing beams were ideal for souvenir makers" (letter, Nov. 19, 1991).

2. (Scotland, by extension) Any two-handled drinking vessel or trophy.

• quaigh
• quegh