[ad. L. cūpula, dim. of cūpa cask, tub, (later) cup; cf. F. cupule (1798 Bulliard Dict. de Botan.). In botany the L. form Cupula is also used.]
1. Bot. A cup-shaped involucre consisting of bracts cohering by their bases, as in the oak, beech and hazel. Also, a cup-like receptacle found in such fungi as Peziza.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 248. An external additional envelope called the cupula. Ibid. (1845), Sch. Bot., vii. (1858), 117. The cupule … in common language, is called husk in the Filbert, Chesnut, and Beech, and cup in the Oak.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 228/2. The receptacles or cupules in which thecæ are produced.
2. Zool. A small cup-shaped organ, as the sucking-disc of the cuttle-fish and of certain aquatic beetles.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1828), IV. 179. Caps or cupules surmounted by a tendon.
3. A small cup-shaped depression on a surface.
1883. H. A. Newton, in Encycl. Brit., XVI. 112. (Meteors) The surfaces very often have small cup-like cavities, sometimes several inches in diameter, sometimes like deep imprints in a plastic mass made by the ends of the fingers, and sometimes still smaller. These ‘cupules’ … may be regarded as a characteristic of meteorites. The air pressed hard against it burns it unequally, forming cupules over its surface.
