Cap

How to spell cap

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce cap

What does cap mean?

1. nounA soft, flat hat, often with a peak or brim at the front.
2. nounA small cover that fits over the top or end of something.
3. nounAn upper limit set on an amount or quantity.
4. verbTo set an upper limit on something, or to cover the top of it.

Cap in a sentence

• noun

  He wore a wool cap to keep his head warm on the walk.

• noun

  She screwed the cap back onto the water bottle.

• noun

  The council placed a cap on parking permits per household.

• verb

  The new policy will cap annual fee increases at three percent.

• noun

  The players collected a club cap on their first appearance.

• noun

  Replace the cap on the pen so the ink does not dry out.

Where does cap come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Late Latin cappa, which meant a hood or a cloak with a hood, and the same root branched into both 'cap' and 'cape'. Old English borrowed it as cæppe to describe a head covering, and the short, blunt spelling has survived essentially unchanged for over a thousand years. Over the centuries the meaning spread by resemblance: anything that fits snugly over the top of something, like a bottle cap or a pen cap, took the name from the covering worn on the head. From there it grew a figurative sense of an upper limit, as in capping a budget, since a cap sits on top and holds something down. Its very plainness is the only spelling trap: three letters, no silent letters, and no doubled consonants to second guess.

How the word is built

• cap (from Late Latin cappa: a hood or covering)