capital
English
[edit]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)
- (uncountable, economics) Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as steam shovels (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
- (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.
- (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.
- 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.
- (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.
- 2010 September, Charlie Brennan, "Active Athletes", St. Louis magazine, ISSN 1090-5723, volume 16, issue 9, page 83:
- (countable) An uppercase letter.
- (uncountable) Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.
- Interpreters need a good amount of cultural capital in order to function efficiently in the profession.
- (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
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Adjective
[edit]capital (not comparable)
- 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
- Chief, in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation.
- London and Paris are capital cities.
- (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.
- (crime) Punishable by, or involving punishment by, death.
- 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.
- Uppercase.
- Antonym: lower-case
- One begins a sentence with a capital letter.
- 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.
- 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.
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Derived terms
[edit]- anticapital
- biocapital
- block capital
- block capitals
- capital account
- capital adequacy
- capital appreciation bond
- capital asset
- capital budgeting
- capital city
- capital control
- capital crime
- capitaldom
- capitaled
- capital equipment
- capital expenditure
- capital expense
- capital flight
- capital gain
- capital gains tax
- capital good
- capital goods
- capital grant
- capital-intensive
- capital intensive
- capital investment
- capitalism
- capitalistic
- capitalitis
- capitalize
- capital loss
- capitally
- capital market
- capital market line
- capital messuage
- capital murder
- capitalness
- capitalness
- capital offence
- capital offense
- capital punishment
- capital share
- capital ship
- capital stock
- capital structure
- capital surplus
- capital value
- capitonym
- countercapital
- cultural capital
- cybercapital
- economic capital
- erotic capital
- financial capital
- fixed capital
- human capital
- intellectual capital
- make capital out of
- marginal cost of capital
- medial capital
- National Capital Region
- noncapital
- personal capital
- provincial capital
- real capital
- risk capital
- sexual capital
- share capital
- small capital
- social capital
- state capital
- subcapital
- trust capital
- venture capital
- weighted-average cost of capital
- working capital
- working capital requirement
- world capital
Related terms
[edit]Etymology 2
[edit]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)
- (countable, architecture) The uppermost part of a column.
- Synonym: chapiter
Translations
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References
[edit]- Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “capital”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- “capital”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- ^ “capitā̆l, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- ^ “capital, adj. and n.2”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
- ^ “capitā̆l, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- ^ “capital, n.1”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
Anagrams
[edit]Asturian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin capitālis.
Adjective
[edit]capital (epicene, plural capitales)
Noun
[edit]capital f (plural capitales)
- capital city (city designated as seat of government)
Noun
[edit]capital m (plural capitales)
- capital (money)
Catalan
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin capitālis.
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]capital m or f (masculine and feminine plural capitals)
Derived terms
[edit]Noun
[edit]capital f (plural capitals)
- capital (city)
Noun
[edit]capital m (plural capitals)
- capital (finance)
Derived terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “capital” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of cheptel.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]capital m (plural capitaux)
- capital (money and wealth)
Adjective
[edit]capital (feminine capitale, masculine plural capitaux, feminine plural capitales)
- 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]Related terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “capital”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
[edit]Latin
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Substantive form of capitālis (“mortal, relating to the head”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Classical Latin) IPA(key): /ˈka.pi.tal/, [ˈkäpɪt̪äɫ̪]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈka.pi.tal/, [ˈkäːpit̪äl]
Noun
[edit]capital n (genitive capitālis); third declension
- 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).
Case | 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]
Noun
[edit]capital f (plural capitais)
- (geopolitics) capital; capital city (place where the seat of a government is located)
- (figurative) capital (the most important place associated with something)
Noun
[edit]capital m (plural capitais)
- (finances) capital (money that can be used to acquire goods and services)
- (figurative) anything of prime importance
Derived terms
[edit]Adjective
[edit]capital m or f (plural capitais)
- capital (of prime importance)
- (law) capital (involving punishment by death)
- (rare, anatomy) capital (relating to the head)
Related terms
[edit]Romanian
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- капитал (capital) — post-1930s Cyrillic spelling
Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from French capital, Latin capitālis.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]capital n (plural capitaluri)
Declension
[edit]singular | plural | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
indefinite articulation | definite articulation | indefinite articulation | definite articulation | |
nominative/accusative | (un) capital | capitalul | (niște) capitaluri | capitalurile |
genitive/dative | (unui) capital | capitalului | (unor) capitaluri | capitalurilor |
vocative | capitalule | capitalurilor |
Adjective
[edit]capital m or n (feminine singular capitală, masculine plural capitali, feminine and neuter plural capitale)
Declension
[edit]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)
Related terms
[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)
- capital (important)
- Es asunto de capital importancia.
- This is a very important matter.
- 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)
Derived terms
[edit]Noun
[edit]capital f (plural capitales)
- capital (city)
Further reading
[edit]- “capital”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English terms with homophones
- Rhymes:English/æpɪtəl
- Rhymes:English/æpɪtəl/3 syllables
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English doublets
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Economics
- en:Business
- en:Finance
- en:Insurance
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- British English
- English dated terms
- en:Crime
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *kap-
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *kap- (head)
- English terms derived from Late Latin
- en:Architectural elements
- en:Capitalism
- Asturian terms borrowed from Latin
- Asturian terms derived from Latin
- Asturian lemmas
- Asturian adjectives
- Asturian nouns
- Asturian feminine nouns
- Asturian masculine nouns
- Catalan terms borrowed from Latin
- Catalan terms derived from Latin
- Catalan terms with IPA pronunciation
- Catalan terms with audio links
- Catalan lemmas
- Catalan adjectives
- Catalan epicene adjectives
- Catalan nouns
- Catalan countable nouns
- Catalan feminine nouns with no feminine ending
- Catalan feminine nouns
- Catalan masculine nouns
- French terms borrowed from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French doublets
- French 3-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio links
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French adjectives
- French terms with usage examples
- Latin 3-syllable words
- Latin terms with IPA pronunciation
- Latin lemmas
- Latin nouns
- Latin third declension nouns
- Latin neuter nouns in the third declension
- Latin neuter nouns
- Latin terms with usage examples
- Portuguese terms borrowed from Latin
- Portuguese terms derived from Latin
- Portuguese doublets
- Portuguese 3-syllable words
- Portuguese terms with IPA pronunciation
- Portuguese 4-syllable words
- Rhymes:Portuguese/al
- Rhymes:Portuguese/al/3 syllables
- Rhymes:Portuguese/aw
- Rhymes:Portuguese/aw/3 syllables
- Portuguese lemmas
- Portuguese nouns
- Portuguese countable nouns
- Portuguese feminine nouns
- pt:Geopolitics
- Portuguese masculine nouns
- Portuguese adjectives
- pt:Law
- Portuguese terms with rare senses
- pt:Anatomy
- Romanian terms borrowed from French
- Romanian terms derived from French
- Romanian terms borrowed from Latin
- Romanian terms derived from Latin
- Romanian terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:Romanian/al
- Rhymes:Romanian/al/3 syllables
- Romanian lemmas
- Romanian nouns
- Romanian countable nouns
- Romanian neuter nouns
- ro:Economics
- ro:Business
- Romanian adjectives
- Romansch terms derived from Latin
- Romansch lemmas
- Romansch nouns
- Romansch masculine nouns
- Sursilvan Romansch
- Sutsilvan Romansch
- Surmiran Romansch
- Spanish terms borrowed from Latin
- Spanish terms derived from Latin
- Spanish doublets
- Spanish 3-syllable words
- Spanish terms with IPA pronunciation
- Spanish terms with audio links
- Rhymes:Spanish/al
- Rhymes:Spanish/al/3 syllables
- Spanish lemmas
- Spanish adjectives
- Spanish epicene adjectives
- Spanish terms with usage examples
- Spanish nouns
- Spanish countable nouns
- Spanish masculine nouns
- es:Finance
- Spanish feminine nouns
- Spanish nouns that have different meanings depending on their gender