cap
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kæp/
ipa: [kʰæp]
rhymes: -æp
Forms: form: caps
form: capping
form: capped
form: capped
form: 🧢
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English cappe, from Old English cæppe, from Proto-West Germanic *kappā (“covering, hood, mantle”), from Late Latin cappa, itself from Latin caput. Doublet of cape, chape, and cope.
Senses: glosses: To cover or seal with a cap.
glosses: To award a cap as a mark of distinction.
glosses: To lie over or on top of something.
glosses: To surpass or outdo.
examples: text: to cap wages
text: It recalls the business case for Scotland's reopening of the Borders Railway to Tweedbank, that British Rail closed in 1969. The review says the business case for this was at best borderline, but goes on to say that the case greatly underestimated passenger demand and that the railway Scotland built has capped its capacity.
ref: 2023 September 6, Philip Haigh, “£30 billion plan to transform the rail network in Ireland”, in RAIL, number 991, page 25:
glosses: To set (or reach) an upper limit on something.
examples: text: That really capped my day.
text: Ms. Yaccarino’s exit caps a tumultuous period at X, which was previously called Twitter and has been remade in Mr. Musk’s image since he bought the platform for $44 billion in 2022.
ref: 2025 July 9, Mike Isaac, Kate Conger, “X CEO Linda Yaccarino Says She Is Leaving Elon Musk’s Platform”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
glosses: To conclude; to make something even more wonderful at the end.
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To select a player to play for a specified side.
examples: text: If he don’t get outta my hood, I’m gonna cap his ass.
text: In a school shooting, where some kid caps a bunch of other kids, where did he get the weapon? From a family member, probably their gun cabinet.
synonyms: pop a cap in someone's ass
glosses: To shoot (someone) with a firearm.
examples: text: "How? Didn’t I cap for you, an’ square you with the examinin’ board? Didn’t I stake you to the three hundred dollars?"
ref: 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis, “Confessions of a Detective”, in Confessions of a Detective, New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, page 36:
text: It’s over for you capping-ass rappers—get out the game / You can fool the record labels, but not the streets, man
ref: 2003, Antwan Patton et al., “Tomb of the Boom”, in Speakerboxxx, performed by OutKast:
glosses: To lie; to tell a lie.
examples: text: Peter Shilton is the most capped English footballer.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To select to play for the national team.
examples: text: Tom never miſsed a lecture, and capped the proctor with the profoundeſt of bows.
ref: 1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “I Go to Cambridge, and Do But Little Good There”, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. […] , volume I, London: […] Smith, Elder, & Company, […], →OCLC, page 231:
text: Indeed, as the astonished small boys "capped" him on his way to nine o'clock "absence," he wore an expression of delight bordering on playfulness, which, coming from one of such firm and commanding features, was immensely striking.
ref: 1909, William Hill Tucker, Eton Memories, page 128:
glosses: To salute by uncovering the head respectfully.
examples: text: As if one going to diſtrain upon his own Land or Tenement, where lawfully he may; yet if in doing thereof, he tranſgreſs the leaſt Point of the Common Law, he ſtraight committeth Felony. Or if one, by any other Occaſion, take any thing from another, as Boys uſe ſometimes to cap one another, the ſame is ſtraight Felony.
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland as It Was in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Dublin: Laurence Flin, published 1763, page 50:
glosses: To deprive of a cap.
Derived terms: cap it off
cap off
cap on
cappable
capper
capping plane
no cap
outcap
recap
uncap