capacious
English edit
Etymology edit
From Latin capāx (“wide, spacious, large; capable”) + -ious. Displaced native Old English numol.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
capacious (comparative more capacious, superlative most capacious)
- Having a lot of space inside; roomy.
- 1874, Marcus Clarke, chapter V, in For the Term of His Natural Life:
- The Malabar, that huge sea monster, in whose capacious belly so many human creatures lived and suffered, had dwindled to a walnut-shell, and yet beside her bulk how infinitely small had their own frail cockboat appeared as they shot out from under her towering stern!
- 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], chapter 1, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
- “Do I fidget you ?” he asked apologetically, whilst his long bony fingers buried themselves, string, knots, and all, into the capacious pockets of his magnificent tweed ulster.
- Capable, able.
- 1857, [Thomas Hughes], “The War of Independence”, in Tom Brown’s School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, part I, page 185:
- [T]he fresh brave school-life, so full of games, adventures, and good fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at enjoying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousandfold their troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional ill-usage of the big boys in the house.
Synonyms edit
- (roomy): ample, commodious, roomy, spacious, voluminous
Related terms edit
Translations edit
having a lot of space inside
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