cap

noun

1. A close-fitting hat, either brimless or peaked.

   “The children were all wearing caps to protect them from the sun.”

   “That elf-maiden smote with her hand so white, “Sorrow and sickness on thee alight” That elf-maiden smote with her cap so small, “No more shall priest's benison on thee fall!””

2. A special hat to indicate rank, occupation, etc.
3. An academic mortarboard.
4. A protective cover or seal.

   “He took the cap off the bottle and splashed himself with some cologne.”

5. A crown for covering a tooth.

   “He had golden caps on his teeth.”

6. The summit of a mountain, etc.

   “There was snow on the cap of the mountain.”

7. An artificial upper limit or ceiling.

   “We should put a cap on the salaries, to keep them under control.”

   “The G7 countries have agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil in an attempt to stem the flow of funds into the Kremlin’s war coffers. […] The level of the cap is still being discussed.”

8. The top part of a mushroom.
9. A small amount of percussive explosive in a paper strip or plastic cup for use in a toy gun.

   “Billy spent all morning firing caps with his friends, re-enacting storming the beach at Normandy.”

10. A small explosive device used to detonate a larger charge of explosives.

    “He wired the cap to the bundle of dynamite, then detonated it remotely.”

11. (slang)A bullet used to shoot someone.

    “Did he think they were going to put a cap in his ass right in the middle of Metreon?”

12. (slang)A lie or exaggeration.

    “no cap”

    “that’s cap”

13. A place on a national team; an international appearance.

    “Rio Ferdinand won his 50th cap for England in a game against Sweden.”

    “"By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who is expected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?" "A reserve, perhaps."”

    “Overall, though, England’s injury-diminished side coped well on the night when Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Jordan Pickford and Tammy Abraham all won their first caps.”

14. (obsolete)The top, or uppermost part; the chief.

    “Thou art the Cap / Of all the Fooles aliue.”

15. (obsolete)A respectful uncovering of the head.

    “He that will give a cap and make a leg, in thanks for a favour he never received, deserveth rather to be blamed for want of wit, than to be praised for store of manners.”

16. The whole top of the head of a bird from the base of the bill to the nape of the neck.
17. The uppermost of any assemblage of parts.

    “the cap of a column, door, etc.; a capital, coping, cornice, lintel, or plate”

18. Something covering the top or end of a thing for protection or ornament.
19. A collar of iron or wood used in joining spars, as the mast and the topmast, the bowsprit and the jib boom; also, a covering of tarred canvas at the end of a rope.
20. A portion of a spherical or other convex surface.
21. A large size of writing paper.

    “flat cap; foolscap; legal cap”

22. (Appalachia)Popcorn.
23. Capitalization.
24. (informal)A capital letter.
25. A capacitor.

    “parasitic caps”

    “I had to replace the caps in that thing to get it to work again.”

26. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, colloquial)Clipping of capture; a recording or screenshot.

    “Anyone have a cap of the games last night?”

    “If you have a cap of Gabby's bare butt from the "forget me not" episode please post or mail it...”

    “Here's a cap of Jennifer from her latest Letterman appearance […]”

    “Please be assured that when I do get around to capping the Brits, there will NOT be one single cap of that slutty bitch, her whorishness has dropped to even lower levels than before.”

27. (slang)A capsule of a drug.

    “Glass bottles of liquid LSD; moist blocks of Manali charras and Malana cream; sachets of smack; a hundred caps of MDMA and a phial of Australian DMT; ampoules of medical morphine and a dense pad of four thousand Californian blotters.”

28. (colloquial)A capitalist.
29. A capillary.
30. A caption.
31. (obsolete)A wooden drinking-bowl with two handles.
32. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of conservation action plan.
33. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of catabolite activator protein.
34. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of community-acquired pneumonia.
35. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of consistency, availability, partition-tolerance, three irreconcilable guarantees in distributed systems, a result known as Brewer's theorem.
36. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of combat air patrol.
37. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of change acceleration process.
38. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of cold atmospheric plasma.
39. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of colors and placements.
40. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, informal)Clipping of Capricorn.

    “Caps are also naturally inclined towards stability and security—they're totally different from noncommittal Sagittarius men. If you're looking for someone who's ready to commit rather than stay in a situationship, odds are that he might be a Capricorn.”

verb

1. (transitive)To cover or seal with a cap.
2. (transitive)To award a cap as a mark of distinction.
3. (transitive)To lie over or on top of something.
4. (transitive)To surpass or outdo.
5. (transitive)To set (or reach) an upper limit on something.

   “to cap wages”

   “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.”

6. (figuratively, transitive)To conclude; to make something even more wonderful at the end.

   “That really capped my day.”

   “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.”

7. (transitive)To select a player to play for a specified side.
8. (slang, transitive)To shoot (someone) with a firearm.

   “If he don’t get outta my hood, I’m gonna cap his ass.”

   “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.”

9. (intransitive, slang)To lie; to tell a lie.

   “"How? Didn’t I cap for you, an’ square you with the examinin’ board? Didn’t I stake you to the three hundred dollars?"”

   “It’s over for you capping-ass rappers—get out the game / You can fool the record labels, but not the streets, man”

10. (transitive)To select to play for the national team.

    “Peter Shilton is the most capped English footballer.”

11. (obsolete, transitive)To salute by uncovering the head respectfully.

    “Tom never miſsed a lecture, and capped the proctor with the profoundeſt of bows.”

    “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.”

12. To deprive of a cap.

    “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.”

13. (informal, transitive)To convert text to uppercase.
14. (transitive)To take a screenshot or to record a copy of a video.

    “I've capped in VCD format, so will eventually post it to abme (I've since found out that it's a bit OT for this group)”

    “Please tell me someone capped it!!!!”

    “If I had a method of capping from video tapes there's a movie that I can no longer remember the name of which has a single scene with Racquel and Derrick as a newly married couple having sex under the lustful eyes of Joey Silvera.”

15. (transitive)To capture an objective, such as a flag or checkpoint.

    “Call your friends and bring a gun / The Halo revolution's on / Capping flags and arming bombs / Yes, we don't blink until we're done”

16. (intransitive, transitive)To capitulate (cause to capitulate) an opponent.

name

1. (European-Union, abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of Common Agricultural Policy.

   “The fact remains that if Ukraine joins, the CAP budget will either have to be increased dramatically or will evaporate, given the sheer area of agricultural land in Ukraine (it’s bigger than the whole of Italy), with the average farm taking up about 1,000 hectares compared to 16 hectares in the rest of the EU.”

2. (US, abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of Civil Air Patrol.
3. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of Colleague Assistance Program.
4. A nickname for the captain of a team, ship, etc.

   “"But listen, Cap!" he protested, momentarily falling out of his role as Midshipman Hornblower. "I haven't got any place else to go! This is where I sleep, where else do you want me to write my letters?"”

5. A nickname for a man generally.

   “‘Hi Cap! Is that the moving picture ship?’”

   ““I'd take Vernon Dewey for my team any day.” “And their quarterback can throw,” Cap pointed out. “But we did all right, huh, Grandpa?” “You did fine,” Tully replied. “All of you did real well.” “Cap, you can throw ...””

   ““Well, Cap, you seem to be a nice gentleman from a good family, but I wished you had come to me and my wife and talked to me before you two started making all these decisions.””