scup

• Rhymes: -ʌp

Shortened form of Narragansett mishcùp (“porgy”) or its plural mishcùppaûog. The singular was also borrowed as mishcup, while another shortening of the plural yields the synonym paugie.[1] The word was also borrowed as scuppaug.

scup (plural scup or scups)

1. A common sparoid food fish, Stenotomus chrysops, of temperate regions of the Atlantic coast of North America; the porgy.
   • 1995, “sheepshead”, entry in Percy Russell, Anita Williams, The Nutrition and Health Dictionary, page 391,

     A saltwater fish, a cousin of porgies and scups. The sheepshead has large, broad incisor teeth, much like a sheep.

   • 2006, Alice Jane Lippson, Robert L. Lippson, Life in the Chesapeake Bay, page 276:

     Scup, in the Bay also called porgy, maiden, and fairmaid, are rather plain-looking fish — dull silver with 12 to 15 indistinct vertical stripes, flecked with light blue on their sides.

   • 2007 August 8, Brett Martin, “First a Hook, Then Ink: An Artist’s Catch”, in New York Times‎:

     On a lark, he took a small scup, or porgy, and a stamp pad and demonstrated how to make a print.

From Dutch schop.

scup (plural scups)

1. (US, dialect) A swing.

• “scup”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• CPSU, CPUs, CUPS, Cups, UPCs, UPSC, cups, cusp