Tup
noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A male sheep, a ram.
"... to tie up rams, which could not be supposed to much used to handling ... having often heard for a proverb, as mad as a tup in an halter"
- 2 Two pence. uncountable
- 3 Abbreviation of transfer under pressure. abbreviation, alt-of
- 4 uncastrated adult male sheep wordnet
- 5 The head of a hammer, and particularly of a steam-driven hammer.
"Those familiar with drop forging are accustomed to sizing drop hammers as 1 ton or 5 ton or whatever. This measure of the size is simply the weight of the tup. The total weight of the helve of No 2 is about 6.4 tons."
- 1 To mate; used of a ram mating with a ewe.
"Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe."
- 2 To have sex with, to bonk, etc. slang
"I love her well enough to tup her, I suppose. A dangerous bit of business, that. She is as fertile as a bloody alluvial plain."
- 3 To butt. English, regional, slang
Example
More examples"... to tie up rams, which could not be supposed to much used to handling ... having often heard for a proverb, as mad as a tup in an halter"
Etymology
From Middle English tupe (compare Scots tuip), origin unknown.
Clipping of tuppence (“two pence”).
Related phrases
More for "tup"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.