cupel
Americannoun
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a small, cuplike, porous container, usually made of bone ash, used in assaying, as for separating gold and silver from lead.
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a receptacle or furnace bottom in which silver is refined.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a refractory pot in which gold or silver is refined
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a small porous bowl made of bone ash in which gold and silver are recovered from a lead button during assaying
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cupel
1595–1605; < Medieval Latin cūpella, equivalent to Latin cūp ( a ) tub + -ella diminutive suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The third is the most delicate, and by this we weigh the beads of gold or silver, which, when the assay is completed, settle in the bottom of the cupel.
From De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georgius Agricola
First put the lead into a cupel, and after it begins to smoke, add the copper; the fire generally consumes the copper, together with the lead, in about one hour and a quarter.
From De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georgius Agricola
Then take the beads out of the cupel and clean them of dross.
From De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georgius Agricola
After the button has been purged of slag, it is put into the cupel, and the gold and silver are separated from the lead; the gold is parted from the silver with aqua valens.
From De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georgius Agricola
Then the cupel is put into a very hot furnace so arranged that a current of air passes over it.
From Harper's Round Table, September 3, 1895 by Various
If the copper bead obtained by fusing upon carbonate of soda be cupelled with assay lead, a silver bead will be obtained.
The whole of the "metallics" scorified and cupelled gave 0.842 gram of silver.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
The lead button is then cupelled on a very fine cupel, as already described.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
The resulting button of lead is cupelled for fine metal.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
M. Marie afterwards took from one of the geodes a pinch of powder weighing about half a gramme, and cupelled a bright dust-shot bead weighing not less than two centigrammes.
From The Land of Midian — Volume 1 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
This is one of the cases in which it is desirable to add a small portion of silver before cupelling.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
The best confirmatory test is made by wrapping the precipitate in a little sheet lead, and cupelling, when the silver will be left in the metallic state, and is easily recognized.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
Suppose we have an alloy of silver and lead in unknown proportions and that by cupelling two lots of 10 grams each there is got from I. 0.1226 gram of silver, and from II.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
The gold obtained on cupelling, less any gold and silver originally present in the liquor, would be the measure of the gold dissolving power.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
The determination may also be made by cupelling the button of lead got in the dry lead assay.
From A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. by Cornelius Beringer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
