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When I was in Okinawa drinking sake I asked my host what the Japanese word for
the sake cup was and was told:

> お猪口{ちょこ}

Then today I went to the [Nezu Museum](http://www.nezu-muse.or.jp/) in Tokyo
which currently has a collection of sake utensils on display. Every single cup
there bore the label:

> さかづき in the rubi and either 盃 or 酒盃 for the kanji.

So I was originally going to ask what the difference is between おちょこ and さかづき
but on looking up the latter for the right kanji to use in this question I was
bombarded with these variants:

> 杯(P); 盃; 坏; 巵; 卮; 盞; 觚; 觴; 酒盃(iK) 【さかずき(P); さかづき; うき(盞)】

So it seems that the exhibit was using neither the preferred/popular kanji nor
the preferred/popular pronunciation!

What am I to make of all this? Which word should I use for sake cup? Why would
the museum go with an uncommon variant? Are there nuances?
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question
word-choice pronunciation spelling kanji-choice
On the two words, several pronunciations, and many spellings for "sake cup"
Well, to start off, お猪口 is the typical cup you see when sake is served hot. It
looks kind of like a ceramic shot glass, just with straighter sides and a
little shorter.

さかずき are flatter and disc-like. As for how to write it, my dictionary confirms
the preferences listed in EDICT: 杯 is listed first, followed by 盃. Unless I go
to the 国語辞典 within the application, it leaves off the other two. Given the
fact that the latter is a 人名用 and the former is 常用, that would appear to
indicate that 杯 is the way to go, however Wikipedia (and, in fact, the
displays you've been reading) appear to prefer 盃.
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2014-04-22T14:38:01.880
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I think さかずき normally refers to something that looks like this:
![さかずき](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jlNaT.jpg)  
and can also be used as a general term for sake cup, including おちょこ:![enter
image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xjypt.jpg)  
I think さかづき is probably an archaic way of spelling it in hiragana(or
katakana?). Nowadays we normally spell it as さかずき. As for 杯 and 盃... both look
okay to me, though I think I learned it as 杯 at school... some people say 盃 is
a 俗字(informal variant?) for 杯 but I'm not sure.
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answer