redcap

Meaning

Noun

• A member of the Royal Military Police a unit in the British army.
• A porter in a US railway station.
• The European goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis).
• A type of evil goblin or imp.
• A breed of poultry.

Origin

• red + cap.
• In sense of "porter", 1890s US; compare contemporary Japanese 赤帽. On Labor Day, 1890, John Williams, an African-American railway porter, tied a red ribbon to his black uniform cap to stand out from the crowd at Grand Central Terminal. The strategy was so successful that it was soon adopted by others in the profession, leading to the synecdochic use of redcap as a term for all railway porters.