Caps

How to spell caps

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce caps

What does caps mean?

1. nounMore than one cap, meaning soft head coverings, protective tops, or closures.
2. verbPlaces an upper limit on something, or covers it with a top.

Caps in a sentence

• noun

  The team handed out branded baseball caps at the trade show.

• verb

  The new policy caps annual bonuses at a fixed percentage of salary.

• noun

  The recycling bin was full of plastic bottle caps.

• verb

  The council caps the number of permits issued each year.

Where does caps come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural and third-person form of 'cap', which descends from the Old English 'cæppe', meaning a hood or covering for the head. That Old English word was itself borrowed early from the Late Latin 'cappa', a cloak or hooded garment, a root that also gave English 'cape', 'chapel', and 'chaperone'. Over the centuries the sense widened from headgear to almost anything that covers or closes a top, such as a bottle cap or a pen cap, and later to figurative limits, as in a 'cap' on spending. The verb sense, meaning to put a top on or to set an upper limit, grew naturally out of the same noun. The spelling stays refreshingly simple: it is just the base word plus a plain '-s', with no doubling or silent letters to trip the writer.

How the word is built

• cap (head covering, top, or limit)
• -s (plural or third-person singular marker)