Double (To)

To pass or sail round, as “to double the cape.” The cape (or point) is twice between the ship and the land. (French, doubler; Latin, duoplico.)

“What capes he doubled, and what continent,

The gulfs and straits that strangely he had past.”

Dryden: Ideas, stanza 1.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.