scape

See also: -scape

English

Amaryllis belladonna flowering before the new season's leaves emerge, showing the inflorescence borne on a scape.

Image showing the clearly visible antennal scape typical of the beetle family Cerambycidae

Illustration showing the oviscape of the Mexican fruit fly. (Photo by Jack Dykinga)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈskeɪp/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪp

Etymology 1

From Latin scāpus, from Doric Greek σκᾶπος (skâpos). Doublet of native English shaft.

Noun

scape (plural scapes)

1. (botany) A leafless stalk growing directly out of a root, bulb, or subterranean structure.
2. The basal segment of an insect's antenna (i.e. the part closest to the body).
3. The basal part, more specifically known as the oviscape, of the ovipositor of an insect.
4. (architecture) The shaft of a column.
5. (architecture) The apophyge of a shaft.

Derived terms

• scape-wheel

Translations

leafless stalk

• Bulgarian: стъбло (bg) n (stǎblo)
• Czech: stvol (cs) m
• Esperanto: skapo
• Finnish: vana (fi)
• French: scape (fr) m
• Maori: kōrari
• Polish: głąbik m
• Romanian: scap (ro) m

basal segment of antenna

• Finnish: varsi (fi)
• French: scape (fr) m

Etymology 2

Formed by aphesis from escape.

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. See talk page

Verb

scape (third-person singular simple present scapes, present participle scaping, simple past and past participle scaped)

1. (archaic) to escape
   • c. 1600, John Donne, Elegy IX: The Autumnal, in Poems (1633)

     No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace

     As I have seen in one autumnal face.

     Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,

     This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.

   • a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “(please specify the title)”, in Poems, […] with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot, […], published 1633, →OCLC:

     Hee will provide you keyes, and locks, to spie,
     And scape spies, to good ends

Noun

scape (plural scapes)

1. (archaic) escape
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

     I spake of most disastrous chances, […] Of hairbreadth scapes in the imminent, deadly breach.

2. (obsolete) A means of escape; evasion.
3. (obsolete) A freak; a slip; a fault; an escapade.
   • 1644, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine or Discipline of Divorce: […], 2nd edition, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, book:

     Not pardoning so much as the scapes of error and ignorance.

4. (obsolete) A loose act of vice or lewdness.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     though I am not bookish, yyet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape

Derived terms

• scape-animal
• scape-bird
• scapegoat
• scape-wheel

 

Etymology 3

Probably imitative.

Noun

scape (plural scapes)

1. The cry of the snipe when flushed.
2. The snipe itself.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “scape”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• EAPCs, EPACs, Space, a-spec, aspec, capes, paces, space

Latin

Noun

scāpe

1. vocative singular of scāpus

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈskape]

Verb

scape

1. third-person singular/plural present subjunctive of scăpa