capital

• capitall (obsolete)

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈkæpɪtəl/
  • (US) IPA^(key): [ˈkʰæp.ɪ.ɾɫ̩]

    • Audio (US):

      (file)

• Homophone: capitol
• Rhymes: -æpɪtəl

From Middle English capital, borrowed partly from Old French capital and partly from Latin capitālis (“of the head”)^[1][2] (in sense “head of cattle”), from caput (“head”) (English cap) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives). Use in trade and finance originated in Medieval economies when a common but expensive transaction involved trading heads of cattle. The noun is from the adjective.^[3]

Compare chattel and kith and kine (“all one’s possessions”), which also use “cow” to mean “property”.

Doublet of cattle and chattel.

capital (countable and uncountable, plural capitals)

1. (uncountable, economics) Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as steam shovels (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
2. (uncountable, business, finance, insurance) Money and wealth. The means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.

   He does not have enough capital to start a business.

3. (countable) A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.
   • 1995, Linda Fang, The Chʻi-lin Purse: A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories‎^[1], New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 54:

     Lin Hsiang-ju immediately said to the king of Ch’in, “If Ta-wang wants fifteen cities from Chao, the king of Chao should also get something in return. What about giving him Hsien-yang as a gift?’ Hsien-yang was the capital of Ch’in.

   • 2005, Sharon Grehan, Random Acts of Malice, page 56:

     Ladies of yesteryear toured world capitals in sedate linen dresses, but such priggish frumpery hardly presents Americans as the carefree, egalitarian, and sensuous people the viewers of dubbed Baywatch episodes have come to expect.

   • 2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:

     From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. […]   But viewed from high up in one of the growing number of skyscrapers in Sri Lanka’s capital, it is clear that something extraordinary is happening: China is creating a shipping hub just 200 miles from India’s southern tip.

   Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States of America.

   The Welsh government claims that Cardiff is Europe’s youngest capital.

4. (countable) The most important city in the field specified.
   • 2010 September, Charlie Brennan, "Active Athletes", St. Louis magazine, ISSN 1090-5723, volume 16, issue 9, page 83:

     Hollywood is the film capital, New York the theater capital, Las Vegas the gambling capital.

5. (countable) An uppercase letter.
6. (uncountable) Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.

   Interpreters need a good amount of cultural capital in order to function efficiently in the profession.

7. (countable, by extension) The chief or most important thing.

The homophone capitol refers only to a building, usually one that houses the legislative branch of a government, and often one located in a capital city.

• (An uppercase letter): caps (in the plural), majuscule

• (antonym(s) of “An uppercase letter”): minuscule

capital (not comparable)

1. Of prime importance.
   • 1708, Francis Atterbury, Fourteen Sermons Preach'd on Several Occasions, Preface:

     a capital article in religion

   • 1852, Isaac Taylor, Saturday Evening:

     whatever is capital and essential in Christianity

2. Chief (in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation).

   London and Paris are capital cities.

3. (comparable, UK, dated) Excellent.

   That is a capital idea!

   • 1878, Henry James, An International Episode‎^[2]:

     “He is a capital fellow,” the Englishman in London had said, “and he has got an awfully pretty wife. […] ”

   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 166:

     Sometimes he laughed heartily as if he heard some capital joke; by degrees this lessened, and he spoke rapidly, but in very low tones.

4. (crime) Punishable by, or involving punishment by, death.

   capital punishment; capital murder

   • 1709, [Jonathan Swift], A Project for the Advancement of Religion, and the Reformation of Manners. […], London: […] Benj[amin] Tooke, […], →OCLC, pages 53–54:

     Neither could the Legiſlature in any thing more conſult the Publick Good, than by providing ſome effectual Remedy againſt this Evil, which in ſeveral Caſes deſerves greater Puniſhment than many Crimes that are capital among us.

   • 1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC:

     to put to death a capital offender

   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 517:

     Some 1,600 priests were deported, for example, while the total number of capital victims of the military commissions down to 1799 was only around 150.

5. Uppercase.

   Antonym: lower-case

   One begins a sentence with a capital letter.

   1. used to emphasise greatness or absoluteness

      You're a genius with a capital G!

      He's dead with a capital D!

      • 2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC‎^[3]:

        In recent years, much has been made of the lack of new heavyweight male star power in mainstream Hollywood. Talented performers may be everywhere, but Movie Stars, capital M, capital S, are something else.

6. Of or relating to the head.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Needs must the Serpent now his capital bruise / Expect with mortal pain.

From Middle English capitale, partly from Old French capital and partly from Late Latin capitellum (“capital or chapiter of a column”),^[4] a form of Latin capitulum (“head-like object or structure; chapter”) (whence English capitulum, chapter, and the synonym chapiter (“uppermost part of a column”)), from caput (“head”) + -ulum (diminutive suffix). Doublet of caddie, cadel, cadet, capitellum, caudillo, and Kadet.

capital (plural capitals)

2. (countable, architecture) The uppermost part of a column.

   Synonym: chapiter

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “capital”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “capital”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• palatic, placita

Borrowed from Latin capitālis.

capital (epicene, plural capitales)

1. capital

capital f (plural capitales)

1. capital city (city designated as seat of government)

capital m (plural capitales)

1. capital (money)

Borrowed from Latin capitālis.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [kə.piˈtal]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ka.piˈtal]

• Audio:

  (file)

capital m or f (masculine and feminine plural capitals)

1. capital

• pena capital
• set pecats capitals

capital f (plural capitals)

1. capital (city)

capital m (plural capitals)

1. capital (finance)

• capitalisme
• capitalista
• capitalitzar

• “capital” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of cheptel.

• IPA^(key): /ka.pi.tal/

• Audio:

  (file)

capital m (plural capitaux)

1. capital (money and wealth)

capital (feminine capitale, masculine plural capitaux, feminine plural capitales)

1. capital (important)

   La peine capitale est abolie en France depuis les années 1980.

   Capital punishment was abolished in France in the 1980s.

• capitale
• capitaliser
• capitalisme

• “capital”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• plaçait

Substantive form of capitālis (“mortal, relating to the head”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈka.pi.tal/, [ˈkäpɪt̪äɫ̪]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈka.pi.tal/, [ˈkäːpit̪äl]

capital n (genitive capitālis); third declension

1. a capital offence; a crime punishable by death, civil death, or exile

   capital facere ― to commit a capital offence

Third-declension noun (neuter, “pure” i-stem).

• “capital”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “capital”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of cabedal and caudal.

• Rhymes: -al, -aw
• Hyphenation: ca‧pi‧tal

capital f (plural capitais)

2. (geopolitics) capital; capital city (place where the seat of a government is located)
4. (figurative) capital (the most important place associated with something)

capital m (plural capitais)

2. (finances) capital (money that can be used to acquire goods and services)
4. (figurative) anything of prime importance

• capitalismo
• capitalista

capital m or f (plural capitais)

2. capital (of prime importance)
4. (law) capital (involving punishment by death)
6. (rare, anatomy) capital (relating to the head)

• cabeça
• cabedal
• cabo
• caput
• caudal
• per capita

• капитал (capital) — post-1930s Cyrillic spelling

Borrowed from French capital, Latin capitālis.

• IPA^(key): /ka.piˈtal/
• Rhymes: -al
• Hyphenation: ca‧pi‧tal

capital n (plural capitaluri)

1. (economics, business) capital

capital m or n (feminine singular capitală, masculine plural capitali, feminine and neuter plural capitale)

1. capital, important

• chapital (Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader)
• chapitêl (Puter)

From Latin capitālis, from caput (“head”).

capital m (plural capitals)

1. (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) capital

• capitala, tgapitala

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of caudal.

• IPA^(key): /kapiˈtal/ [ka.piˈt̪al]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ca‧pi‧tal

capital m or f (masculine and feminine plural capitales)

1. capital (important)

   Es asunto de capital importancia.

   This is a very important matter.

2. capital (relating to a death sentence)

   Lo condenaron a la pena capital.

   He was sentenced to the death penalty.

capital m (plural capitales)

1. (finance) capital

capital f (plural capitales)

1. capital (city)

• “capital”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28