Tassies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Small cups or containers typically used for serving tea or coffee
2. A term that may refer to informal or quaint drinking vessels
3. A playful or affectionate reference to small vessels for beverages, often associated with homely settings

Etymology: "Tassies" is the plural of "tassie", which is a small drinking cup, and that cup has travelled a long way to reach English. Its ancestor is the Arabic "ṭās", meaning a bowl or basin, which passed into French as "tasse" (cup). French then carried the word into English, where it settled on a small, typically handled vessel for drinking. The journey from a broad Arabic word for a bowl to an English term for a dainty cup shows how a general container name narrows over time as particular kinds of vessel come to be called by it. Because "tassie" is the diminutive form, it describes a little version of the cup itself, so the plural "tassies" refers to a set of these small vessels.