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
- A sleeveless outer garment fastened at the throat and hanging over the shoulders, like a short cloak.
- 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
Modern meaning
Noun
- A point or head of land jutting out into a body of water; a headland or promontory.
- (the Cape) The Cape of Good Hope, or the Cape Province of South Africa.
Word family
- Cape Cod
- Cape Horn
- Cape Town
Related words
References
- ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
- ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ 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
- ^ 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)
- ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press