Word.ws English Dictionary

mob cap

UK/ˈmɒb kap/

mob cap noun: a plain cap or headdress for women or girls, especially one tied under the chin by a very broad band, and having a puffy crown and frills.

Noun

mob cap (plural mob caps)

  1. (historical) A plain cap or headdress for women or girls, especially one tied under the chin by a very broad band, and having a puffy crown and frills.
    • You must get a brown gown, and a white apron, and a mob cap, and we must make you a few wrinkles, and a little of the crowsfoot at the corner of your eyes, and you will be a very proper, little old woman.1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 305–306
    • She was dressed entirely in flowing black cerements and wore a little lacy mob-cap on a mass of dead-looking yellowish white hair; her features were still beautiful, but her face was completely covered with mauve face-powder.1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 161
  2. (modern-day use) A disposable head covering with an elasticated band, worn for cleanliness in industrial settings.

Forms of mob cap

pluralmob caps
alternative formmob-cap
alternative formmobcap

Origin of mob cap

From mob (“unruly group”) + cap (“hat”), in reference to the riots of French Revolution.

Questions about mob cap

What does mob cap mean?
Mob cap means a plain cap or headdress for women or girls, especially one tied under the chin by a very broad band, and having a puffy crown and frills.
What part of speech is mob cap?
Mob cap is a noun.
How do you pronounce mob cap?
Mob cap is pronounced /ˈmɒb kap/ (UK).
What is the plural of mob cap?
The plural of mob cap is mob caps.

Words near mob cap in the dictionary

  1. Moattalite
  2. Moattalites
  3. moaty
  4. Moazagotl
  5. mob
  6. mob cap
  7. mob caps
  8. mob football
  9. mob handed
  10. mob law
  11. mob mentalities

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mob cap (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-mob cap.wav.

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