[L.; = head.]
1. Sometimes used in technical language instead of the vernacular ‘head’ or ‘top’; esp. in Anat. In Bot. the peridium of certain fungi.
† 2. Short for CAPUT MORTUUM, q.v.
† 3. The former ruling body or council of the University of Cambridge.
1716. Kennet, in J. H. Monk, Life R. Bentley (1833), I. 423, note. The Caput, as they call them, complain much of a breach of their privilege, that it was not laid before them preparatory to its being laid before the Senate.
1797. Cambridge Univ. Cal., 144. The vice-chancellor, a doctor of divinity, a doctor of laws, a doctor of physic, a regent master of arts, and a non-regent master of arts, form the caput. They are to consider and determine what graces are proper to be brought before the university.
1823. Lamb, Elia (1860), 16. Your caputs, and heads of colleges care less than any body else.
1830. Bp. Monk, Life Bentley (1833), I. 423. The … mistake of confounding the Caput Senatus with the Heads of Colleges.
4. Occas. used in certain L. phrases in Astron., etc., as Caput Draconis, i.e., Dragon’s Head, a star in Draco; Caput Medusæ, the star Algol or Medusa’s Head in Perseus; also a species of fossil Pentacrinite; caput radicis, the crown of the root in a plant.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., lxxxii. Irresolution, doth as Dreadfull rise As Caput Algot in Nativities.
