[ad. F. cap head, cape, ad. Pr. cap or It. capo:—Romanic capo, for L. caput head. (The native Fr. repr. of Rom. capo is chef.)]
1. A piece of land jutting into the sea; a projecting headland or promontory.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Prol., 408. ffrom Gootlond to the Cape of ffynystere.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., I. III. (Arb.), 75. Inclosed on bothe sydes with capes or poyntes which receaue the water.
1598. Hakluyt, Voy., I. 311. A cape or headland called Sivetinoz.
1635. N. Carpenter, Geog. Del., II. xi. 189. A Promontorie is a high mountaine bending it selfe into the sea: the head whereof is called a Cape.
1799. H. Hunter, trans. St. Pierre’s Stud. Nat., III. 8. Between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., II. xl. Childe Harold hail’d Leucadia’s cape afar.
transf. & fig. 1850. B. Taylor, Eldorado, II. xiv. 142. We approached a cape of the mountains.
1860. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., V. Pref. 6. Pieces of paper … eaten away … in capes and bays of fragile decay.
2. The Cape: some familiar headland; esp. the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Hence familiarly for Cape Colony, and ellipt. for Cape (colony) wine, wool, funds, etc.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 642. Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape.
1686. Lond. Gaz., No. 2180/4. The 25th of June they all sailed from the Cape.
c. 1800. Southey, Inscript., xl. Vessels which must else have braved The formidable Cape, and have essayed The perils of the Hyperborean Sea.
a. 1845. Hood, Public Din., ii. Bucellas made handy, With Cape and bad Brandy.
1884. York Her., 23 Aug., 7/2. Wool Markets…. Capes are without improvement.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 1 Oct., 5/2. Capes … were practically unsaleable at the beginning of this week, investors fighting shy of the stock of a colony whose future political status seems somewhat hazy.
Mod. He has gone out to the Cape, to try sheep-farming.
3. Cape Fly-away (see quot.).
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Terre de beurre, cape fly-away, a cant-phrase applied to any illusive appearance of land in the horizontal clouds.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Cape Fly-away, a cloud-bank on the horizon, mistaken for land, which disappears as the ship advances.
4. attrib. a. in sense 2, as in Cape boor, region, wine, etc.; esp. in numerous names of animals, plants, etc., found at the Cape of Good Hope, as Cape aloes, ant-eater, ash, badger, ebony, heath, marmot, etc.; Cape clouds (see quot.); Cape elk, the Eland; Cape-gooseberry, Physalis pubescens; Cape-hen, a small kind of Albatross; Cape jasmine, Gardenia florida; Cape pigeon, a Petrel.
1822. Burrowes, Encycl., V. 623/2. A *cape boor bestows no more labour on his farm than is absolutely necessary.
1880. Agnes Giberne, Sun, Moon & Stars, 269–70. Mention should be made of the famous Magellanic Clouds in the southern heavens. Sometimes they are called the *Cape Clouds.
1880. ‘Silver & Co.,’ S. Africa (ed. 3), 140. The *Cape Gooseberry is a species of winter cherry.
1775. Dalrymple, in Phil. Trans., LXVIII. 408. An uncommon birdlike *Cape hen.
1760. Ellis, ibid. LI. 932. The *Cape Jasmine … is the most rare and beautiful shrub, that has yet been introduced into the European gardens.
1858. Merc. Mar. Mag., V. 290. Albatrosses and *Cape Pigeons about.
1797. Holcroft, Stolberg’s Trav., III. lxxxiv. (ed. 2), 351. I have seen it drunk … for red *Cape wine.
b. attrib. and in comb. in other senses; as cape-wise adv.; Cape weed, Roccella tinctoria ‘a dye lichen, obtained from the Cape de Verde Islands’ (Treas. Bot., 1866).
1849. Thoreau, Week Concord Riv., 207. I jutted over the stream cape-wise.
