Cap n.
 1. A covering for the head; esp. (a) One usually with a visor but without a brim, for men and boys; (b) One of lace, muslin, etc., for women, or infants; (c) One used as the mark or ensign of some rank, office, or dignity, as that of a cardinal.
 2. The top, or uppermost part; the chief.
    Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.   --Shak.
 3. A respectful uncovering of the head.
    He that will give a cap and make a leg in thanks.   --Fuller.
 4. Zool. The whole top of the head of a bird from the base of the bill to the nape of the neck.
 5. Anything resembling a cap in form, position, or use; as: (a) Arch. The uppermost of any assemblage of parts; as, the cap of column, door, etc.; a capital, coping, cornice, lintel, or plate. (b) Something covering the top or end of a thing for protection or ornament. (c) Naut. A collar of iron or wood used in joining spars, as the mast and the topmast, the bowsprit and the jib boom; also, a covering of tarred canvas at the end of a rope. (d) A percussion cap. See under Percussion. (e) Mech. The removable cover of a journal box. (f) Geom. A portion of a spherical or other convex surface.
 6. A large size of writing paper; as, flat cap; foolscap; legal cap.
 Cap of a cannon, a piece of lead laid over the vent to keep the priming dry; -- now called an apron.
 Cap in hand, obsequiously; submissively.
 Cap of liberty. See Liberty cap, under Liberty.
 Cap of maintenance, a cap of state carried before the kings of England at the coronation. It is also carried before the mayors of some cities.
 Cap money, money collected in a cap for the huntsman at the death of the fox.
 Cap paper. (a) A kind of writing paper including flat cap, foolscap, and legal cap. (b) A coarse wrapping paper used for making caps to hold commodities.
 Cap rock Mining, The layer of rock next overlying ore, generally of barren vein material.
 Flat cap, cap See Foolscap.
 Forage cap, the cloth undress head covering of an officer of soldier.
 Legal cap, a kind of folio writing paper, made for the use of lawyers, in long narrow sheets which have the fold at the top or “narrow edge.”
 To set one's cap, to make a fool of one. (Obs.) --Chaucer.
 To set one's cap for, to try to win the favor of a man with a view to marriage. [Colloq.]


 Flat a. [Compar. Flatter superl. Flattest ]
 1. Having an even and horizontal surface, or nearly so, without prominences or depressions; level without inclination; plane.
 Though sun and moon
 Were in the flat sea sunk.   --Milton.
 2. Lying at full length, or spread out, upon the ground; level with the ground or earth; prostrate; as, to lie flat on the ground; hence, fallen; laid low; ruined; destroyed.
    What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat!   --Milton.
    I feel . . . my hopes all flat.   --Milton.
 3. Fine Arts Wanting relief; destitute of variety; without points of prominence and striking interest.
    A large part of the work is, to me, very flat.   --Coleridge.
 4. Tasteless; stale; vapid; insipid; dead; as, fruit or drink flat to the taste.
 5. Unanimated; dull; uninteresting; without point or spirit; monotonous; as, a flat speech or composition.
 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
 Seem to me all the uses of this world.   --Shak.
 6. Lacking liveliness of commercial exchange and dealings; depressed; dull; as, the market is flat.
 7. Clear; unmistakable; peremptory; absolute; positive; downright.
 Syn: -- flat-out.
    Flat burglary as ever was committed.   --Shak.
    A great tobacco taker too, -- that's flat.   --Marston.
 8. Mus. (a) Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat. (b) Not sharp or shrill; not acute; as, a flat sound.
 9. Phonetics Sonant; vocal; -- applied to any one of the sonant or vocal consonants, as distinguished from a nonsonant (or sharp) consonant.
 10. Golf Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club.
 11.  Gram. Not having an inflectional ending or sign, as a noun used as an adjective, or an adjective as an adverb, without the addition of a formative suffix, or an infinitive without the sign to. Many flat adverbs, as in run fast, buy cheap, are from AS. adverbs in -ë, the loss of this ending having made them like the adjectives. Some having forms in ly, such as exceeding, wonderful, true, are now archaic.
 12.  Hort. Flattening at the ends; -- said of certain fruits.
 Flat arch. Arch. See under Arch, n., 2. (b).
 Flat cap, cap paper, not folded. See under Paper.
 Flat chasing, in fine art metal working, a mode of ornamenting silverware, etc., producing figures by dots and lines made with a punching tool. --Knight.
 Flat chisel, a sculptor's chisel for smoothing.
 Flat file, a file wider than its thickness, and of rectangular section. See File.
 Flat nail, a small, sharp-pointed, wrought nail, with a flat, thin head, larger than a tack. --Knight.
 Flat paper, paper which has not been folded.
 Flat rail, a railroad rail consisting of a simple flat bar spiked to a longitudinal sleeper.
 Flat rods Mining, horizontal or inclined connecting rods, for transmitting motion to pump rods at a distance. --Raymond.
 Flat rope, a rope made by plaiting instead of twisting; gasket; sennit.
 Note: Some flat hoisting ropes, as for mining shafts, are made by sewing together a number of ropes, making a wide, flat band. --Knight.
 Flat space. Geom. See Euclidian space.
 Flat stitch, the process of wood engraving. [Obs.]
 Flat tint Painting, a coat of water color of one uniform shade.
 To fall flat (Fig.), to produce no effect; to fail in the intended effect; as, his speech fell flat.
 Of all who fell by saber or by shot,
 Not one fell half so flat as Walter Scott.   --Lord Erskine.


 flat cap
      n : a flat woolen cap with a stiff peak [syn: cloth cap]