pitch-capn.
/ˈpɪtʃkap/, U.S. /ˈpɪtʃˌkæp/ Now historical.† 1. Medicine. A dressing containing pitch, used as a depilatory for the scalp, especially in cases of ringworm. Cf. pitch-plaster n. Obsolete (historical in later use).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > healing > medical appliances or equipment > equipment for treating wound or ulcer > [noun] > poultice, plaster, or compress > plasters for specific parts
liver-paddingc1450
stomacher1577
pitch-cap1589
pitch-plaster1601
pericarpium1663
liver pad1877
1589 J. Rider Bibliotheca Scholastica 1093 A pitche cappe made to take away the hair from scabbed heads, depilatorium, psilothrum.
1797 C. B. Schade New Pocket Dict. Eng. & German Lang. II. 288 Pechmüke, f. a pitch-cap.
1806 Times 15 Oct. 3/3 He acknowledged, that while with the nurse, to whose care he was consigned by the parish, he had a scald head, and wore a pitch cap for it.
1897 New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon at Pitch Pitch cap, this was until about 1850 or 1860 the universal application for Favus... The plaster was made of starch, verdigris, vinegar, black pitch, resin, Burgundy pitch, and an alloy of mercury and antimony.
2. A cap lined with hot pitch, esp. one used as an instrument of torture by the military during the Irish rebellion of 1798.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > punishment > torture > instrument or place of torture > [noun] > cap lined with pitch
pitch-cap1803
1803 E. Hay Insurr. Wexford 181 They certainly were the introducers of pitch-cap torture into the county of Wexford [in 1798].
1842 R. R. Madden United Irishmen I. xi. 337 The numbers tied up to the triangles and tortured with the scourge, or tormented with the pitch-caps..in the year 1798.
1915 S. Gwynn Famous Cities Ireland viii. 254 Here [at Tyrone House] the work was done with cat-of-nine-tails, pitchcaps, and all the other devil's enginery.
1996 Irish Times (Nexis) 2 Sept. 13 Thomas Honam, a sergeant with the North Cork militia earned his reputation as ‘Tom the Devil’ for his expertise in torture and his perfection of the pitchcap.
2002 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 19 Dec. 54/3 I knew how the English tortured the rebels and their associates by giving them ‘a pitch cap’ by pouring boiling tar on their heads and then pulling the hardened tar off.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
pitch-capv.
/ˈpɪtʃkap/, U.S. /ˈpɪtʃˌkæp/ Now historical.
transitive. To torture (a person) with a pitch-cap.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > punishment > torture > [verb (transitive)] > with pitch
pitch-cap1810
1810 Irish Mag. 3 49 (caption) Captn Swayne Pitch Capping the People of Prosperous.
1864 G. A. Sala in Daily Tel. 14 Nov. The ignorant and deluded peasants who were tarred, pitchcapped, singed, and flogged until their entrails fell out.
1889 Catholic World Feb. 664 The peasantry are full of reminiscences of that time; scarcely one you will meet, farmer or peasant..has not had an ancestor who was hung or pitch-capped in those evil old days.
1963 A. Clarke Flight to Afr. iii. 123 A Gaelic poet, Pitch-capped in the Rebellion of '98.
1996 Irish Times (Nexis) 2 Sept. 13 Old men who had their heads sheared and had been pitch capped as croppies were still to be seen in Co. Wexford in the 1860s.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1589v.1810