scape

• IPA^(key): /ˈskeɪp/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -eɪp

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

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.

• scape-wheel

From Middle English scapen (whence also atscapen and ofscapen (“to escape”)), formed by aphesis from escapen, ascapen (“to escape”). Compare also Old French scapper, a variant of Old French eschaper, formed via similar process. Doublet of escape.

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

1. (transitive, archaic) To escape (someone or something).
   • 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.

   • 1608, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “[Du Bartas His Second Weeke, […]. David. […].] The Decay. The IIII. Book of the IIII. Day of the II. Week.”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, →OCLC, page 619:

     He (to beguile the ſimple) makes no bone / To ſvvear by God (for he beleeues ther's none); / His Svvord's his Title; and vvho ſcapes the ſame, / Shall haue a Piſtol, or a Poyſonie dram: […]

   • 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

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.
   • 1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC:

     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

Probably imitative.

scape (plural scapes)

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

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

scāpe

1. vocative singular of scāpus

• IPA^(key): [ˈskape]

scape

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