Wiktionary

capital

See also: capitâl

English

edit
 
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

edit

Pronunciation

edit

Etymology 1

edit

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.

Noun

edit

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.
Usage notes
edit

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.

Synonyms
edit
Antonyms
edit
  • (antonym(s) of “An uppercase letter”): minuscule
Derived terms
edit
Translations
edit
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective

edit

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.

Interjection

edit

capital

  1. (slang, dated) used as an expression of approval, satisfaction, or delight.
    That's an amazing idea! Capital!
Derived terms
edit
Translations
edit
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
edit

Etymology 2

edit
 
A Doric capital
 
An Ionic capital
 
A Corinthian capital
 
A Composite capital

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.

Noun

edit

capital (plural capitals)

  2. (countable, architecture) The uppermost part of a column.
    Synonym: chapiter
    • 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros‎[4], London: Jonathan Cape, page 3:
      But a great wonder of this chamber, and a marvel to behold, was how the capital of every one of the four-and-twenty pillars was hewn from a single precious stone, carved by the hand of some sculptor of long ago into the living form of a monster: […]
Translations
edit

References

edit
  1. ^ “capitā̆l, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “capital, adj. and n.2”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
  3. ^ “capitā̆l, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. ^ “capital, n.1”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Anagrams

edit

Asturian

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Latin capitālis.

Adjective

edit

capital (epicene, plural capitales)

  1. capital

Noun

edit

capital f (plural capitales)

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

Noun

edit

capital m (plural capitales)

  1. capital (money)

Catalan

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Latin capitālis.

Pronunciation

edit

Adjective

edit

capital m or f (masculine and feminine plural capitals)

  1. capital

Derived terms

edit

Noun

edit

capital f (plural capitals)

  1. capital (city)

Noun

edit

capital m (plural capitals)

  1. capital (finance)

Derived terms

edit

Further reading

edit

French

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of cheptel.

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

capital m (plural capitaux)

  1. capital (money and wealth)

Adjective

edit

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.

Derived terms

edit
edit

Further reading

edit

Anagrams

edit

Latin

edit

Etymology

edit

Substantivation of apocopated capitāle, nominative neuter singular of capitālis (“punishable by death; of the head”). See capitis poena (“capital punishment”) and -al.

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

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

Declension

edit

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

singular plural
nominative capital capitālia
genitive capitālis capitālium
dative capitālī capitālibus
accusative capital capitālia
ablative capitālī capitālibus
vocative capital capitālia

References

edit
  • “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

Portuguese

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of cabedal and caudal.

Pronunciation

edit
 

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

Noun

edit

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)

Noun

edit

capital m (plural capitais)

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

Derived terms

edit

Adjective

edit

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)
edit

Romanian

edit

Alternative forms

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from French capital, Latin capitālis.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

edit

capital n (plural capitaluri)

  1. (economics, business) capital

Declension

edit
Declension of capital
singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative capital capitalul capitaluri capitalurile
genitive-dative capital capitalului capitaluri capitalurilor
vocative capitalule capitalurilor

Adjective

edit

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

  1. capital, important

Declension

edit
Declension of capital
singular plural
masculine neuter feminine masculine neuter feminine
nominative-
accusative 		indefinite capital capitală capitali capitale
definite capitalul capitala capitalii capitalele
genitive-
dative 		indefinite capital capitale capitali capitale
definite capitalului capitalei capitalilor capitalelor

Romansch

edit

Alternative forms

edit

Etymology

edit

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

Noun

edit

capital m (plural capitals)

  1. (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) capital
edit

Spanish

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of caudal.

Pronunciation

edit

Adjective

edit

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.

Derived terms

edit

Noun

edit

capital m (plural capitales)

  1. (finance) capital

Derived terms

edit

Noun

edit

capital f (plural capitales)

  1. capital (city)
edit

Further reading

edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=capital&oldid=84702530"