cap-a-pie

• “His astonishment and confusion, therefore, were great, when, as the last note of the proclamation died in the echo, Count Robert of Paris stood forth, armed cap-a-pie, his mailed charger led behind him from within the curtained enclosure, at one end of the lists, as if ready to mount at the signal of the marshal.”

  Count Robert of Paris

• “Will Cary, who, clad cap-a-pie in a shining armor, sword on thigh, and helmet at saddle-bow, looked as gallant a young gentleman as ever Bideford dames peeped at from door and window.”

  Westward Ho!

• “Nothing but the point of her poop remained, and there stood the stern and steadfast Don, cap-a-pie in his glistening black armor, immovable as a man of iron, while over him the flag, which claimed the empire of both worlds, flaunted its gold aloft and upwards in the glare of the tropic noon.”

  Westward Ho!

• “Along the brink of the bog, picking their road among crumbling rocks and green spongy springs, a company of English soldiers are pushing fast, clad cap-a-pie in helmet and quilted jerkin, with arquebus on shoulder, and pikes trailing behind them; stern steadfast men, who, two years since, were working the guns at”

  Westward Ho!

• “He had not gone quite twenty miles from Ispahan before five hundred horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, came up with him and his attendants and discharged a volley of firearms upon them.”

  Candide

• “A celestial cavalier, armed cap-a-pie, preceded by a celestial flambeau, descends from the height of the empyrean, conducts the publican to the lake in the midst of storms, drives away all the soldiers who guard the shore, and gives Theodotus time to fish up the seven old women and to bury them.”

  A Philosophical Dictionary

• “I am armed cap-a-pie; today I open the campaign, and in forty-eight hours I shall have made great progress.”

  Eve and David

• “The apprentice is nearer the long long thoughts of boyhood, and his imagination rides cap-a-pie through the chambers of his brain, seeking some knightly quest in honour of that Fair Lady, the last but one of the girl apprentices to the dress-making upstairs.”

  The Wheels of Chance: a bicycling idyll

• “And he flung open the door and entered with the most severe and warlike expression, armed cap-a-pie as it were, with lance couched and plumes displayed, and glancing at his adversary, as if to say,”

  The History of Pendennis

• “Good people, when not armed cap-a-pie, wear a speckled tunic girt about the waist, and low hats, apparently of straw.”

  Lay Morals

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