cupping

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a treatment in which evacuated cups are applied to the skin to draw blood through the surface
verb form into the shape of a cup
verb put into a cup

From Middle English cupping, equivalent to cup + -ing.

He did not approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. — Middlemarch, George Eliot
Besides his seton and his cuppings, dry and wet, and his blisters on his arms and back, and his mustard poultices on his feet and legs, and his doses of mercury and alteratives, he had also to deplete himself of blood three times a week by a dozen or twenty leeches behind his left ear and on his temple. — The Martian: A Novel, George Du Maurier
Here we are ordered to walk to digest it; there we are kept in bed after taking it till it be wrought off, our stomachs and feet having continually hot cloths applied to them all the while; and as the Germans have a particular practice generally to use cupping and scarification in the bath, so the Italians have their ‘doccie’, which are certain little streams of this hot water brought through pipes, and with these bathe an hour in the morning, and as much in the afternoon, for a month together, either the head, stomach, or any other part where the evil lies. — Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete, Michel de Montaigne

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