cap-a-pie

alternative cap-à-pie · alternative cap-à-piè · alternative cap-à-pié · alternative cap-a-pe · alternative cap-a-pee · alternative cap-apée · alternative capapie

1. not comparableFrom head to toe, especially of armor or other military accoutrements.

   Miss Thorne when fully dressed might be said to have been armed cap-a-pie, and she was always fully dressed, as far as was ever known to mortal man.

   1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

   2 more examples

   If twenty thousand naked Americans were not able to resist the assaults of but twenty well-armed Spaniards, I see little possibility for one honest man to defend himself against twenty thousand knaves, who are all furnished cap-a-pie with the defensive arms of worldly prudence, and the offensive, too, of craft and malice.

   1661–67, Abraham Cowley, The Dangers of an Honest Man in much Company

   I sallied forth cap-à-pie in my Madras regimentals, intending to accompany Brent to Westminster Abbey, and to take a coach at the first stand we came to.

   1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 129