Word.ws English Dictionary

night cap

night cap is the alternative form of nightcap.

Meaning of nightcap

Noun

nightcap (plural nightcaps)

  1. A warm cloth cap worn while sleeping, often with pajamas, being common attire in northern Europe before effective home heating became widespread.
    • Winston wore a nightcap to stave off the cold.
  2. A beverage drunk before bed that is usually alcoholic.
    • I'll make myself a nightcap of whisky and lemon before heading to bed.
  3. (broadly, figuratively) Something that a person reads or listens to before bed.
    • "[…] and as a nightcap I happened to pick the copy of Plato […]"1920, Granville Stanley Hall, Recreations of a Psychologist
  4. (US) The final match of a sporting contest, especially the second game of a baseball doubleheader.
  5. (historical) A cap drawn over the face of the condemned person before they are hanged.

See all 7 meanings of nightcap

Forms of night cap

pluralnight caps

Questions about night cap

What is night cap the alternative form of?
Night cap is the alternative form of nightcap.

Words near night cap in the dictionary

  1. night blind
  2. night blindness
  3. night blindnesses
  4. night blue
  5. night blues
  6. night cap
  7. night caps
  8. night cart
  9. night carts
  10. night chair
  11. night chairs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: night cap (page history and authors); nightcap (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: “night cap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/night_cap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.