1. Black cap: spec. that worn by English judges when in full dress, and consequently put on by them when passing sentence of death upon a prisoner.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, lii. The jury returned…. The judge assumed the black cap.
2. One who wears a black cap or head-dress.
1856. J. Grant, Bl. Dragoon, v. The old blackcaps frowned terribly at … this fashion.
3. Blackcap: A name given to various birds having the top of the head black; esp. by English writers to the small bird also called Blackcap Warbler, Curruca (or Motacilla) atricapilla.
Also applied locally to: a. Several species of Parus, as P. major the Great Tit, P. palustris the Marsh Tit, P. ater the Cole Tit, and in U.S. P. atricapillus the Blackcap Tit, or Chickadee; b. the Black-headed Bunting; c. the Black-headed Gull; d. the Stonechat; and casually to others.
1678. Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., 241. The Marsh Titmouse or Black-cap. Ibid., 347. The Pewit or Black-cap, called in some places, the Sea-Crow and Mire-Crow.
1768. Pennant, Zool., II. 262. The black cap is a bird of passage, leaving us before winter.
1789. G. White, Selborne (1853), 145. The black-cap has … a full sweet deep loud and wild pipe.
1802. G. Montagu, Ornith. Dict. (1833), 350. Great Black-headed Tomtit, Blackcap. Ibid., 415. Black-bonnet, Black-cap, prov. names for the Black-headed Bunting, Emberiza schœniclus.
1863. Yng. England, Aug., 127. In Wiltshire I have heard the red-backed shrike … called the black cap.
1883. G. Allen, in Knowledge, 25 May, 304/1. Blackcaps are above everything hangers-on of civilisation.
4. Black-cap pudding: a boiled batter pudding into which a handful of currants or raisins is dropped before boiling, which sink to the bottom, and form a black capping when the pudding is reversed out of the basin or mold.
1822. Kitchiner, Cook’s Oracle, 517–8.
