The square academic cap, graduate cap, cap, mortarboard or Oxford cap is an item of academic dress consisting of a horizontal square board fixed upon a skull-cap, with a tassel attached to the centre. In the UK and the US, it is commonly referred to informally in conjunction with an academic gown as a "cap and gown". It is also sometimes termed a square, trencher, or corner-cap. The adjective academical is also used.
Graduation portrait of Linus Pauling wearing a mortarboard, 1922
Georgiana Simpson in 1921, wearing a mortarboard and academic dress for her graduation from the University of Chicago
Andrea Mantegna: Ludovico III Gonzaga (detail from the frescoes of the Camera degli Sposi, 1465–74)
Two British mortarboards; left one is a folding-skull and the right one is a rigid-skull.
Academic dress is a traditional form of clothing for academic settings, mainly tertiary education, worn mainly by those who have obtained a university degree, or hold a status that entitles them to assume them. It is also known as academical dress, academicals, and, in the United States, as academic regalia.
A doctor of philosophy of the University of Oxford, in full academic dress
Academic dress of King's College London in different colours, designed and presented by fashion designer Vivienne Westwood
Erasmus of Rotterdam in a functional warm scholar's robe, fur-lined dark wool
Ceremonial robe of McGill University's principal and chief executive
