képi

plural képis

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of kepi.

   Madame here says we might get our heads cracked if we wore képis. They’re not the fashion here.

   1903, John Oxenham, Flowers of the Dust, page 331

   5 more examples

   My craning round long enough only to see that the unknown wore képis, brought another volley, harmless, but that it made my unruly made my unruly mount so fidgety that the saddle twisted round, and I came to the ground.

   1872, J[ames] L[umsden] Seton, Notes on the Operations of the North German Troops in Lorraine and Picardy; Taken While Accompanying Principally the 40th, or Hohenzollern Fusilier Regiment, London: W. Mitchell and Co., […], page 218

   Both companies were provided with helmets instead of the second company wearing képis as is usually the case.

   1886 April, The Carthusian, volume IV, number 123, page 173, column 2

   The second, at which all the men at the execution are soldiers, wearing képis, has been cut in pieces, nearly all of which have been collected and put together.

   1910, Théodore Duret, translated by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, Manet and the French Impressionists, page 225

   I guessed him Northern from his képi, but this was not conclusive, for many Southron regiments wore képis also.

   1955, Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee, William Heinemann Ltd, page 181

   In Memphis he supposed there’d be more blacks, and here the cops wore képis so you were in France, but in the long run it was all McKeesport, Pennsylvania, and the smell would be just the same.

   1975, Nicolas Freeling, What are the Bugles Blowing For?, Heinemann, →ISBN, page 6