The square academic cap, graduate cap, cap, mortarboard[1] (because of its similarity in appearance to the mortarboard used by brickmasons to hold mortar[2]) or Oxford cap[3] is an item of academic dress consisting of a horizontal square board fixed upon a skull-cap, with a tassel attached to the centre. In the UK and the US, it is commonly referred to informally in conjunction with an academic gown as a "cap and gown". It is also sometimes termed a square,[4]: 17 [5] trencher,[4]: 17 [6]: 915 or corner-cap.[5] The adjective academical is also used.[7]
The cap, together with the gown and sometimes a hood, now form the customary uniform of a university graduate in many parts of the world, following a British model.
- ^ mortarboard. Archived 2008-08-28 at the Wayback Machine The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
- ^ Mortarboard. Entry at Dictionary.com.
- ^ "Trencher cap". Webster's Dictionary. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
the cap worn by students at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, having a stiff, flat, square appendage at top. A similar cap used in the United States is called Oxford cap, mortar board, etc.
- ^ a b Groves, Nicholas (2011). Shaw's academical dress of Great Britain and Ireland (3rd ed.). Burgon Society. ISBN 9780956127235.
- ^ a b Robinson, N F (1905). "The Pileus Quadratus: An enquiry into the relation of the priest's square cap to the common academical catercap and to the judicial corner-cap". Transactions of the St Paul's Ecclesiological Society. 5: 1–16. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
- ^ Brewer, E Cobham (1896). Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Harper & Brothers. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
- ^ Chapter II[permanent dead link], University of Cambridge Ordinances.