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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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

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 virus continues spreading down the Chilean coast towards Cape Horn.

From New York Times Apr. 22, 2024

All this before the Wager passed into Cape Horn, where gales reached 200 miles per hour and subzero temperatures coated the ship with a carapace of ice.

From Los Angeles Times Apr. 14, 2023

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

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