Word.ws English Dictionary

set one's cap at

set one's cap at verb: to choose a man as a potential husband (for a girl).

Verb

set one's cap at (third-person singular simple present sets one's cap at, present participle setting one's cap at, simple past and past participle set one's cap at)

  1. (idiomatic) To choose a man as a potential husband (for a girl).
    • To hear her rant, one would have supposed, who had not seen him, that her lank-haired, grimly partner, was the prettiest youth in the county of Dublin, and that all the comely lasses in Chapelizod and the country round were sighing and setting caps at him […]1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) To choose something as a goal.
    • Patrick O'Brian, "HMS Surprise".
      How he has escaped marriage until now I cannot tell: the number of caps set in his direction would furnish a warehouse.

Forms of set one's cap at

third-person singular presentsets one's cap at
present participlesetting one's cap at
past participleset one's cap at
pastset one's cap at
alternative formset one's cap for

Origin of set one's cap at

Probably a calque of French mettre le cap sur (“to set a course for”).

Questions about set one's cap at

What does set one's cap at mean?
Set one's cap at means to choose a man as a potential husband (for a girl).
What part of speech is set one's cap at?
Set one's cap at is a verb.
What is the past tense of set one's cap at?
The past tense of set one's cap at is set one's cap at.

Words near set one's cap at in the dictionary

  1. set on
  2. set on a pedestal
  3. set on fire
  4. set on foot
  5. set one's affairs in order
  6. set one's cap at
  7. set one's face against
  8. set one's hair on fire
  9. set one's hand to
  10. set one's heart on
  11. set one's heart upon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: set one's cap at (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: En-au-set one's cap at.ogg.

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