English
redcap
From red + cap.
The story
In sense of "porter", 1890s US; compare contemporary Japanese 赤帽 (akabō), Chinese 小紅帽 /小红帽 (Xiǎo Hóng Mào). 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.
Today it means
noun A member of the Royal Military Police a unit in the British army.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “redcap”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / redcap