v. [UN-2 4.]
1. trans. To remove the cap from (the head or a person). Also absol.
1566. Painter, Pal. Pleas., li. 219. All they that weare hornes, be pardoned to weare their capps…. For they be so sweete and pleasaunt, as they vncappe no man.
1598. Florio, Sberettare, to vncap, to put off hat or cap.
1836. L. Hunt, Poems, Bodryddan, 98. The gard’ner … Uncapp’d his bent old silver hair.
1875. H. James, Transatlantic Sk., 247. I felt really like uncapping, with a kind of reverence.
2. To divest (a thing) of a cap or covering.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xix. (Roxb.), 170/2. The Words of command for the pistolls. 1. Vncape your pistolls. 2. Draw forth your pistoll.
1711. Milit. & Sea Dict. (ed. 4), Uncap your Cartridges, Is to take off the Top of the Paper, which is folded down at the End, that so the Powder may fall loose to the Touch-hole.
1750. W. Ellis, Mod. Husbandm., VI. I. v. 28. Farmers are emboldened to let their wheat stand … in the field without uncapping.
1859. Jephson & Reeve, Brittany, 88. Mr. Taylor was watching eagerly for a sign from me to uncap the lenses.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artill. Man. (1862), 112. No. 3 loads, assists to ram home, elevates, uncaps fuze when in bore.
