Cape Horn

American  

noun

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

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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

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Example Sentences

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

Merchant Marine Academy still teaches cadets the story of Mary Ann Patten taking a clipper ship around Cape Horn.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 8, 2025

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

The town’s location near the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge offers easy access to natural attractions such as the Cape Horn Lookout, Beacon Rock State Park and the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 11, 2024

At sixteen he joined the merchant marine, and his first voyage took him around Cape Horn in the winter: it was his first experience of the Southern Ocean.

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