Cape Horn

American  

noun

1. a headland on a small island at the southern extremity of South America: belongs to Chile.

---

Cape Horn British  

noun

1. Also called: the Horn.  a rocky headland on an island at the extreme S tip of South America, belonging to Chile. It is notorious for gales and heavy seas; until the building of the Panama Canal it lay on the only sea route between the Atlantic and the Pacific

---

Example Sentences

A helpful map of the globe points out notoriously treacherous waters, including those off the southern tip of South America, where countless sailors have perished in the turbulent seas around Cape Horn.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026

Miranda wanted to lead a Latin American revolution, and create from Spain’s former colonies a grand republic of Colombia stretching from Cape Horn to California.

From Barron's • Jan. 18, 2026

The 51-mile-long canal avoids the need for ships to make the much longer voyage around Cape Horn at the tip of South America.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 20, 2025

Late 2023 The virus rounds Cape Horn and moves north into Argentina and Uruguay, killing sea lions and seals and eventually reaching southern Brazil.

From New York Times • Apr. 22, 2024

The closest inhabited land was Cape Horn, at the tip of South America, 600 miles away.

From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong