r/etymology • u/TheTossoutAcc • Apr 19 '21

What is the etymology of “Cap” and “no cap”?

As you can imagine, I clearly can’t find it so I’m asking here.

All I can find is people telling how it was popularized by Young Thug and like hood culture. But like what’s the actual ORIGIN? Like what does it come from?

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u/savage_engineer Apr 26 '22

In Black slang, to cap about something is “to brag,” “to exaggerate,” or “to lie” about it. This meaning of cap dates back to the early 1900s.

History lesson: In the 1940s, according to Green’s Dictionary of Slang, to cap is evidenced as slang meaning “to surpass,” connected to the ritualized insults of capping (1960s). These terms appear to be rooted in the sense of cap as “top” or “upper limit.”

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u/trickmind Nov 27 '22

It's a fake gold cap on a tooth versus a solid gold tooth.

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u/RitaFaye88 Jan 25 '23

I’m a dental professional and will forever think of this when discussing a crown!

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u/SonOf_J Jul 15 '24

Trust me bro these crowns are fr, no cap

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u/Holiday-flu Aug 11 '24

Thats a cool idea. But doesn't make any sense if you think about a gold cap isn't a thing. A grill is jewelry not teeth replacement and doesn't work like that at all.

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u/trickmind Aug 11 '24

Well a grill is still false and fitted over teeth so "no cap," meaning not false? You are capping your teeth over with fake teeth?

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u/Ok_Exercise_1846 Mar 31 '25

A grill is a cap but dentists do install crowns which are more like artificial teeth shaped from different materials. So a solid gold crown is what they're referrtheyreabout a tooth that's no cap. It's not a grill. It's a crown. Just entirely different things.

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u/hsnotter Apr 16 '26

But it’s not a hold tooth because the root isn’t gold. I have a titanium root implant for instance.

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u/Heryllio Sep 10 '24

Just take out the word "gold"

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u/True-Media-7543 Jan 11 '26

there are gold caps. i had silver caps when i was really young. its old school its been replaced with crowns and fillings. but tooth caps are 100% real.

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u/Unique_Process8552 Nov 16 '24

This is the answer i choose to believe 

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u/mchellokitty71 Jan 04 '25

Ohhhh! Very good! Makes sense!

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u/quiktekk Mar 05 '25

Came here 2 years later to with this statement: fake gold cap is lying through your teeth is how I understood this from way back

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u/trickmind Mar 06 '25

Yes it appears to be that way. The gold cap rather than a real gold tooth, but they want you to think it's a whole gold tooth, so it's lying.

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u/Sad_Recording4620 Jul 10 '25

it's like exposing something presented

as solid is actually surface level "cap"

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u/Some-Double-6354 May 03 '26

With what’s noted, then this whole rabbit hole dig I’ve been on to try to figure out my kids’ slang (first was FAX), & on ‘no cap’ ‘capping’ & ‘that’s cap’ makes me think it has something to do w/ capital or capitalize, etc. That derivative would make sense. Although I get the bottle analogy about keeping it capped(lid on tight/hush hush/lie), or if lying saying no cap.

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u/ViolentLoss 16d ago

This is fascinating

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u/KrigtheViking Apr 26 '22

Nice, thanks for the update!

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u/Solwake- Oct 11 '23

Oh okay, this ads an emphatic connotation that helps it make more sense. It seems like it adds emphasis the same way people who add "literally" to expressions for emphasis, like "I'm not even exaggerating" or "It literally is".

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u/PsyMar2 Jun 02 '25

I suspect "no cap" got popular because we needed something to replace "literally" after even the dictionary decided "literally" can mean "figuratively; not literally"

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u/DcMaDriver Jan 10 '24

Yeah, but in this sense, cap means a lie and no cap means truth.