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mobcap

[mob-kap]
See more synonyms for mobcap on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a soft cloth cap with a full crown, fitting down over the ears and frequently tying beneath the chin, formerly worn indoors by women.
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Origin of mobcap

1785–95; perhaps mob slattern (itself perhaps variant of Mab for Mabel) + cap1
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for mob-cap

Historical Examples

  • Or safe in a married state you might wear a mob-cap in to breakfast.

    Hints to Pilgrims

    Charles Stephen Brooks

  • A Mob-Cap was once upon a time a picturesque finish to a pretty face, and it was of home-manufacture.

  • My pretty neighbor below, who is immaculate when I meet her on the stairs, was in her mob-cap.

    Hints to Pilgrims

    Charles Stephen Brooks

  • Phdre had a gown la Mary Stuart, a mob-cap, and was covered with mouches to the end of her nose.

  • Mr. Pickwick had a father, a grandfather; a mother in a mob-cap; in the eighteenth century.

    Mrs. Warren's Daughter

    Sir Harry Johnston

British Dictionary definitions for mob-cap

mobcap

noun
  1. a woman's large cotton cap with a pouched crown and usually a frill, worn esp during the 18th centuryOften shortened to: mob
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Word Origin

C18: from obsolete mob woman, esp a loose-living woman, + cap
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

Word Origin and History for mob-cap

n.

a type of woman's indoor cap, 1795 (as simply mob, 1748), from cap (n.) + obsolete mob (n.) "negligent attire" (1660s), earlier "a strumpet" (earlier form mab, 1550s), related to obsolete verb mob "to tousle the hair, to dress untidily" (1660s), and perhaps ultimately from mop, but influenced by Mab as a female name. Dutch has a similar compound, mopmuts, but the relationship between it and the English word is uncertain.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper