cupped

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of cup.

   She cupped the candle flame to protect it from the wind.

   The nurse cupped his elbow and guided him to a chair.

   Note

   The verb always takes an object, so this form either has one directly (she cupped her hands) or turns up in the passive (the water was cupped in his palms). The passive also carries an older medical use: to be cupped was to have a cupping apparatus applied, now archaic. An obsolete use meant being supplied with cups of wine.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having the hollow, inward-curving shape of a cup; concave.

   Like a satellite dish, curved inward to gather whatever falls into it.

   He drank from his cupped palms at the mountain stream.

   The cupped petals of the flower trapped the morning dew.

   Similarconcave, curved

   Oppositeflat, convex

   Note

   The verb's participle has settled into an adjective of shape, and it is most at home before a noun: cupped hands, cupped palms, cupped petals. It names a shape rather than a degree, so it does not compare. Nothing is "more cupped" than something else, and to grade the curve you say deeper or shallower. Position separates it from the past form of cup: before a noun it describes, and after have it acts.

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