cape

Pronunciation

• IPA: /keɪp/^[1]

cape¹ sleeveless garment

Etymology

The garment is borrowed from Middle French cape, partly from Old Provençal Old Occitan capa (“hooded mantle”) and partly from Spanish capa (“cloak”),^[2][3][4][5] both from Late Latin cappa (“hooded cloak, head covering”) (see cap, a doublet).^[2][4][6] The earliest English use was taken directly from Medieval Latin cappa and was not distinguished from the ecclesiastical cope;^[2] late Old English already had capa, cæppe, “cloak with a hood”, directly from Latin.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cloak with a hood, or an ecclesiastical cope: about 1205 in the OED, probably before 1200 in Layamon's Brut in Barnhart.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

The garment was first set apart as a sleeveless cloak, and as a Spanish style, in a thesaurus of 1565–78 and later in Cotgrave's dictionary (1611).^[2][7][4] The tippet of a cloak, an extra outer piece over the shoulders, is from 1596,^[7] and a short, loose sleeveless garment of its own from 1611.^[7] Hoad dates the sleeveless cloak to the 18th century.^[3] Cape and sword, of romantic fiction and drama, is from 1898,^[7] and cape-work, a bullfighter's work with the cape, is recorded too.^[7] In Westmorland and Yorkshire the word was also an old-fashioned children's collar.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1205 – a cloak, cope.^[7][2]
• 1565–78 – a Spanish sleeveless cloak.^[7][2]
• 1596 – the tippet of a cloak.^[7]
• 1611 – a short sleeveless garment.^[7]
• 1898 – cape and sword.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A sleeveless outer garment fastened at the throat and hanging over the shoulders, like a short cloak.
2. A piece of material fixed to a coat so as to fall loosely from the shoulders.

Word family

• caped
• capelet

cape² headland

Etymology

The headland is borrowed from Middle French cap (“cape, head”),^[2][3][4] from Old Provençal cap (“head”),^[2][6][3] from Latin caput (“head”) (see head),^[2][4][6] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *kauput- (“head”).^[4] Barnhart notes that several languages use their word for head for a headland, such as Danish hoved and Welsh and Cornish pen.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A piece of land jutting into the sea: about 1386, in the General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.^[2][7][4]

Semantic evolution

The Cape, for the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, is from the 1660s.^[4] Old sailors called low cloud banks that could be mistaken for land on the horizon Cape fly-away (1769).^[4] A short-lived nautical verb, to cape, meant of a ship to head or bear, perhaps from French cap, the head of a ship.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1386 – a headland, in Chaucer.^[2][7]
• 1660s – the Cape of Good Hope.^[4]
• 1769 – Cape fly-away.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A point or head of land jutting out into a body of water; a headland or promontory.
2. (the Cape) The Cape of Good Hope, or the Cape Province of South Africa.

Word family

• Cape Cod
• Cape Horn
• Cape Town

Related words

• cap
• cope
• chapel
• capo
• chief
• head
• escape

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press