Night cap

This article covers headgear. For the synonym of crown cork see there. There is also a card game of the same name, see Schlafmütze (card game) .

The poor poet with night cap, painting by Carl Spitzweg, 1839

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf . In the woodcut by Gustave Doré , the wolf is wearing the grandmother's hood

A night cap , also called a sleeping cap , is a soft head covering that was worn in bed because bedrooms weren't as well heated as they are today, if at all. While the shape of the sleeping cap for men corresponded to a pointed cap , women wore a sleeping cap with folds of fabric.

In the 19th century, night caps were often used in surgery to hold bandages in place on the head. The pictography shows a moon with a sleeping cap as a symbol of sleep.

In a figurative sense, since the 18th century, the term “sleepyhead” also means a slow, clumsy, inattentive or lazy person or a late riser. In the political cartoon , the sleeping cap is an attribute of the German Michel .

See also

• Nightwear
• Hood
• Sleep culture

Web links

Commons : Nightcaps (headgear)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: sleepyhead  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations