The square academic cap, graduate cap, or mortarboard (because of its similarity in appearance to the hawk used by bricklayers to hold mortar) or Oxford cap, is an item of academic head dress consisting of a horizontal square board fixed upon a skull-cap, with a tassel attached to the center. In the UK and the US, it is commonly referred to informally in conjunction with an academic gown worn as a cap and gown. It is also often termed a square, trencher, or corner-cap in Australia. The adjective academical is also used. In the US and UK, it is usually referred to more generically as a mortarboard, or (in the U.S.) simply cap.
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.
Read more about Square Academic Cap: Origins, Variants, Tassel, Traditional Wear
Famous quotes containing the words square, academic and/or cap:
“The square dance fiddler’s first concern is to carry a tune, but he must carry it loud enough to be heard over the noise of stamping feet, the cries of the “caller,” and the shouts of the dancers. When he fiddles, he “fiddles all over”; feet, hands, knees, head, and eyes are all busy.”
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I was so grateful to be independent of the academic establishment. I thought, how awful it would be to have my future hinge on such people and such decisions.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)