cap [OE] We get our word cap from Latin cappa ‘hood’, which may be related to Latin caput ‘head’. Cape [ME], ‘a cloak’, originally one with a hood, also came from cappa, while the geographical cape [LME] goes back to caput, in the same way English uses ‘headland’. The same source gives us chaperone [LME] first recorded as a hood. A person providing protection or cover by accompanying another, dates from the early 18th century. The saying if the cap fits, wear it goes back to a dunce’s cap, of the kind that poor performers at school had to wear as a mark of disgrace, in use by the early 19th century. Americans use the version if the shoe fits, wear it. See also chapel.