Square academic cap

Graduation portrait of Linus Pauling wearing a mortarboard, 1922

Georgiana Simpson in 1921, wearing a mortarboard and academic dress for her graduation from the University of Chicago

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.

[1] rtarboard. Archived 2008-08-28 at the Wayback Machine The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

[2] Mortarboard. Entry at Dictionary.com.

[3] "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.

[shaw3-4] Groves, Nicholas (2011). Shaw's academical dress of Great Britain and Ireland (3rd ed.). Burgon Society. ISBN 9780956127235.

[robinson-5] 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-6] Brewer, E Cobham (1896). Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Harper & Brothers. Retrieved 14 May 2015.

[7] Chapter II^{[permanent dead link]}, University of Cambridge Ordinances.

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