Word.ws English Dictionary

cape

/keɪp/

cape noun: a piece or point of land, extending beyond the adjacent coast into a sea or lake; a promontory; a headland.

cape: a piece or point of land, extending beyond the adjacent coast into a sea or lake; a promontory; a...
Image: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

cape (plural capes)

  1. A piece or point of land, extending beyond the adjacent coast into a sea or lake; a promontory; a headland.

Noun (2)

cape (plural capes)

  1. A sleeveless garment or part of a garment, hanging from the neck over the back, arms, and shoulders.
    • Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN
  2. (slang) A superhero.
    • Rows and rows of booths and pavilions stretch across the floor, draped with glowing holograms and shifting signs beckoning capes to try their wares. Bystander insurance. Hypertech components. Mystical ingredients. Training DVDs ...2017, April Daniels, Dreadnought: Nemesis - Book One, Diversion Books, →ISBN

Verb

cape (third-person singular simple present capes, present participle caping, simple past and past participle caped)

  1. To incite or attract (a bull) to charge a certain direction, by waving a cape.
    • “I became a novillero when I was fourteen, but I had already been going to the fields and caping bulls since I was about twelve."2013, Odie Hawkins, The Black Matador, "Sugar", AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 140
  2. To head or point; to keep a course.
    • The ship capes southwest by south.
  3. To skin an animal, particularly a deer.
  4. (US, slang) To defend or praise, especially that which is unworthy.
    • A lot of African-Americans believe the answer is Clinton, mostly because "she's not Trump" and because President Barack Obama is shamelessly caping for her.2016, Ken Makin, “Clinton-Trump debacle underscores gross misunderstanding of politics”, in Urban Pro Weekly, 6 October - 12 October 2016, page 5
    • Many times, you see white supremacist groups caping for women to mask their agenda of white nationalism.2017, Laila Nur, quoted in Jordan Green, "Far-right groups converge behind anti-sharia message in Raleigh", Triad City Beat, 14 June - 20 June 2017, page 9
  5. (transitive) To cover (as) with or like a cape.
    • The white fur that caped his neck and shoulders stood on end.1988, Susan Lowell, Ganado Red: A Novella and Stories, Milkweed Editions, →ISBN, page 86
    • He shook her gently, combing his fingers through her coppery curls that caped her shoulders like filigree.1991, Terri Valentine, Outlaw’s Kiss, Zebra Books, →ISBN, page 329

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Cape

Cape (plural Capes)

  1. (countable) A surname.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Cape

the Cape

  1. (Africa, Southern, abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Cape of Good Hope.
  2. (South Africa, abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Cape Province: a former province of South Africa, split into three in 1994.
    • This is my maat Marius; he just moved to Joburg from the Cape.
  3. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Cape Cod.
  4. (Africa, Southern, abbreviation, ellipsis, historical) Ellipsis of Cape Colony.
  5. (abbreviation, ellipsis, space flight) Ellipsis of Cape Canaveral: a peninsula in Florida, United States, where the major U.S. spaceflight complex is located.

Noun (3) capitalized: CAPE

CAPE (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of convective available potential energy.
  2. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio.
    • Take the economist Robert Shiller’s CAPE ratio, which measures the valuation of the S&P 500 over long periods. Professor Shiller, a Nobel laureate, designed it as an inflation-adjusted yardstick for comparing stock prices with the average of the last 10 years of corporate earnings.2026 June 13, Jeff Sommer, “Mega I.P.O. Frenzy Could Be a Harbinger of a Stock Bubble”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Proper noun (3) capitalized: CAPE

CAPE

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries.

cape meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

cape in Tamil

headland
முனை muṉai

cape in Marathi

केप

cape in Urdu

کیپ

cape in Bengali

কেপ, কেপে
More languagesFewer languages
cape in Telugu
కేప్, కెప్
cape in Kannada
ಕೇಪ್, ಕೆಪ್
cape in Gujarati
કેપે
cape in Odia
କେପ୍, କେପ
cape in Nepali
केप, केपमा
cape in Tagalog
tangos, lungos
cape in Arabic
رَأْس raʔs
cape in Malay
tanjung, tanah penganjur
cape in Indonesian
tanjung
cape in Persian
شنل šenel
cape in Thai
แหลม lɛ̌ɛm
cape in Vietnamese
mũi, mũi đất
cape in Myanmar
အငူ a.ngu

Examples of cape in a sentence

  • […] Biden is the old man who once caped for systematic racism; […]2019 April 3, Julian Lutz, “Elizabeth Warren has authenticity”, in The Hawk, Saint Joseph's University, page 8:
  • Out of the corner of his eye, he saw blatant relief sketched on her face as the jacket caped her body.2014, Kate Meader, Hot and Bothered, Forever, Grand Central Publishing, →ISBN:

All 40 example sentences with cape

Synonyms of cape

Forms of cape

Noun
pluralcapes
Verb
third-person singular presentcapes
present participlecaping
past participlecaped
pastcaped
Proper noun
pluralCapes

Plural of cape: capes

Origin of cape

From Middle English cape, gappe, cap, from Old French cap (“cape, headland”), from Latin caput (“head”). Compare Old Norse kobbi (“islet, small cape”). Doublet of capo, caput, chef, and chief, and distantly with head and Howth. For sense development, compare English ness (“a promontory point, cape”) from a root related to nose, Bulgarian нос (nos) (the same PIE root). Also compare coast (<< Latin costa).

From French cape, from Old Occitan capa, from Late Latin cappa (“cape”). The second sense ("superhero") is metonymic from the fact that many superheroes wear capes. Likewise, the verb sense "defend, praise" alludes to the stereotypical depiction of superheroes wearing capes when they come to people's defense. (Compare caped crusader.) Doublet of capa and cappa.

English surname, from the noun cape. Also found in French as Capé.

Words formed from cape

Phrases with cape

103 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with cape

21 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about cape

What does cape mean?
Cape means a piece or point of land, extending beyond the adjacent coast into a sea or lake; a promontory; a headland.
What is cape in Tamil?
Cape in Tamil is முனை (muṉai). See Cape meaning in Tamil.
How do you use cape in a sentence?
[…] Biden is the old man who once caped for systematic racism; […]
What part of speech is cape?
Cape can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cape?
Cape is pronounced /keɪp/.
What is the plural of cape?
The plural of cape is capes.

Words near cape in the dictionary

  1. capcodes
  2. capcom
  3. capcoms
  4. CAPD
  5. Capdenac
  6. cape
  7. cape ann
  8. cape anns
  9. Cape ash
  10. Cape ashes
  11. Cape Barren geese

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cape (page history and authors); Cape (page history and authors); CAPE (page history and authors); cape (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cape (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cape (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cape (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cape (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cape (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cape (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cape (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-cape.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cape.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cape. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.