Dictionary

priestcap en · NOUN

Etymology

From priest + cap, from its shape.

Meanings

1. A skullcap.
   • At one point where the path ran close to Westring-park proper, the park on higher ground, a grass-bank seven feet high dividing them, he was a-top of the bank in caftan, priest-cap, and phylacteries, taking snuff—Baruch Frankl 2014, Matthew Phipps Shiel, The Lord of the Sea:
2. A form of redan in fortifications; a swallowtail.
   • For the next hour the Union troops tried to storm the priestcap, but there was only "a continued repetition of this scene; a yell, a rush, shouts, muskets, cries, and groans." 1990, Carl Moneyhon, Carl H. Moneyhon, Bobby Leon Roberts ·, Portraits of Conflict, page 226:
   • In the center, Augur and Paine attacked with vigor and were bloodily repulsed when they struck what turned out to be the strongest point of the enemy line, the priestcap near the Jackson road; 2009, Shelby Foote, The Civil War Volume II: Fredericksburg to Meridan, page 402:
   • One led from Dryea's Battery toward the Priestcap and by various windings to within about twenty yards of the parapet. 1894, D.H. Hanaburgh, History of the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Regiment: New York Volunteers (US Infantry): in the Late Civil War, page 66:

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