Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A black band worn, as on the sleeve, as a sign of mourning.
  • transitive verb To cover or drape with or as if with crape.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A thin, semi-transparent stuff made of silk, finely crinkled or crisped, either irregularly or in long, nearly parallel ridges.
  • noun One dressed in mourning; a hired mourner; a mute.
  • To curl; form into ringlets; crimp, crinkle, or frizzle: as, to crape the hair.
  • To cover or drape with crape.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A thin, crimped stuff, made of raw silk gummed and twisted on the mill. Black crape is much used for mourning garments, also for the dress of some clergymen.
  • noun (Bot.) a very ornamental shrub (Lagerströmia Indica) from the East Indies, often planted in the Southern United States. Its foliage is like that of the myrtle, and the flower has wavy crisped petals.
  • noun See Canton crape.
  • transitive verb To form into ringlets; to curl; to crimp; to friz.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Crepe.
  • noun Mourning garments, especially an armband or hatband.
  • verb transitive To form into ringlets; to curl or crimp.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb curl tightly
  • noun small very thin pancake
  • verb cover or drape with crape
  • noun a soft thin light fabric with a crinkled surface

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of French crêpe; see crepe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Alteration of French crepe, from Middle French crespe ("curly"), from Latin crispus

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Examples

  • The body, covered with a black pall, was borne on the shoulders of men; the mourners were in crape and walked with bowed heads, while the neighbors who had tears to shed, did so copiously and summoned up their saddest facial expressions.

    Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences 1815-1897 1898

  • She was turned from her, her head was bent down, her white dress was such as she was accustomed to wear, except that a thin crape-like veil covered her golden tresses, and concealed her as a dim transparent mist.

    III.4 1826

  • The ladies have a great partiality for crimson crape, which is generally worn as an under-robe, and peeps daintily out at the bottom of the dress, and at the wide open sleeves; it is also entwined in the hair, and with the girdle, at the back of which it is allowed to droop in full, graceful folds.

    Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs Jacob Mortimer Wier Silver

  • Then they were gone, and she was dressed in black, and the room was filled with the unmistakable odour of black crape, which is not like anything else in the world.

    The White Sister 1881

  • But in all these cases the Cypress is not the name of the plant, but is the fabric which we now call crape, the "sable stole of Cypre's lawn" of

    The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Henry Nicholson Ellacombe 1868

  • "I adopted that common lawn," planting trees and shrubs such as crape myrtles and Japanese maples, he said.

    High on life, in homes hugging hill Susan Straight 2010

  • The veil was a kind of crape, so that they could see through it, or at least

    The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 390, September 19, 1829 Various

  • He had begun some time since to "crape," and he knew just why a packet of candles addressed to that pursuit had been stowed by his own hand, three weeks before, at the back of a drawer of the fine old sideboard that occupied, as a "fixture," the deep recess in the dining - room.

    The Jolly Corner Henry James 1879

  • England for the usual Norwich manufactures, as also for other delicate productions, such as crape shawls and dress-fabrics.

    John Deane of Nottingham Historic Adventures by Land and Sea William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

  • · Propagation: Hardwood cuttings of many landscape plants, such as crape myrtle, hydrangea and juniper, can be taken this month.

    Daytona Beach News-Journal Online By KAREN STAUDERMAN, Volusia County extension agen 2010

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