Word.ws English Dictionary

decap

/diːˈkæp/

decap verb: to remove a cap.

Verb

decap (third-person singular simple present decaps, present participle decapping, simple past and past participle decapped)

  1. To remove a cap.
    • Late one night in 1992, in Sudan's desiccated capital of Khartoum—the famous confluence of the Blue and White Nile Rivers, from where they blend together and flow deeply north, toward Egypt—an old Englishman broke Islamic law and decapped a bottle of Johnny Walker Red.2014, Scott Peterson, Me Against My Brother, page 180
    1. To enzymatically remove a cap from mRNA.
    2. (hardware) To remove the epoxy from an integrated circuit.
    3. To cause an armor-piercing shell to lose its hardened cap, degrading its ability to penetrate armor.
    4. To remove an upper limit.
      • In October 1985 ARDC successfully decapped the AIF and was operating under the RDTE appropriation .1987, United States. Army Materiel Command. Historical Office, Annual historical review, page 16
      • During 1995 the mark up on borrowed capital was around 17.5% which was decapped, consequently the banks started charging mark up rate as high as 24%.1997, Economic Review - Volume 28, page 35
  2. To change an uppercase letter to lowercase; to decapitalize.
    • In English this pronoun is always written with a capital letter, while "you", the second person singular, which in Russian out of courtesy we spell with a capital, is decapped in English.1974, Мариэтта Сергеевна Шагинян, Retracing Lenin's Steps, page 106

Forms of decap

third-person singular presentdecaps
present participledecapping
past participledecapped
pastdecapped

Origin of decap

From de- + cap.

Words formed from decap

Questions about decap

What does decap mean?
Decap means to remove a cap.
What part of speech is decap?
Decap is a verb.
How do you pronounce decap?
Decap is pronounced /diːˈkæp/.
What is the past tense of decap?
The past tense of decap is decapped.

Words near decap in the dictionary

  1. decaose
  2. decaoses
  3. decaoxide
  4. decaoxides
  5. decaoxo
  6. decap
  7. decapacitate
  8. decapacitated
  9. decapacitates
  10. decapacitating
  11. decapacitation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: decap (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “decap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/decap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.