Redcap
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A member of the Royal Military Police a unit in the British army. British
- 2 a porter who helps passengers with their baggage at a railroad station wordnet
- 3 A porter in a US railway station. US
- 4 a member of the military police in Britain wordnet
- 5 A European goldfinch, Eurasian goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis). British, archaic
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 A type of evil goblin or imp. British
"1876: Porter & Coates (pub.), Reliques of Ancient English Poetry Lord Soulis he sat in Hermitage Castle, And beside him Old Redcap sly; — "Now, tell me, thou sprite, who are meikle of might, The death that I must die?""
- 7 A breed of poultry.
Example
More examples"1876: Porter & Coates (pub.), Reliques of Ancient English Poetry Lord Soulis he sat in Hermitage Castle, And beside him Old Redcap sly; — "Now, tell me, thou sprite, who are meikle of might, The death that I must die?""
Etymology
From red + cap. In sense of "porter", 1890s US; compare contemporary Japanese 赤帽 (akabō), Chinese 小紅帽 /小红帽 (Xiǎo Hóng Mào). On Labor Day, 1890, John Williams, an African-American railway porter, tied a red ribbon to his black uniform cap to stand out from the crowd at Grand Central Terminal. The strategy was so successful that it was soon adopted by others in the profession, leading to the synecdochic use of redcap as a term for all railway porters.
Related phrases
More for "redcap"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.