Nape. n.s. [Of uncertain etymology. Skinner imagines it to come from nap, the hair that grows on it; Junius, with his usual Greek sagacity, from νάπη, a hill; perhaps from the same root with knob.] The joint of the neck behind.
Turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interiour survey of your good selves. Shakes.
Domitian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was growing out of the nape of his neck. Bacon.