capital
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: capitâl
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
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
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, 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.
- (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
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
Antonyms
- (antonym(s) of “An uppercase letter”): minuscule
Translations
capital city — see capital city
money and wealth
|
capital letter — see capital letter
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Adjective
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:
- “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:
- 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
of prime importance
|
(UK, dated) excellent
|
punishable by, or involving punishment by, death
|
uppercase
|
chief (in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation)
- 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
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Derived terms
- 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
- political capital
- provincial capital
- real capital
- risk capital
- sexual capital
- share capital
- small capital
- social capital
- state capital
- subcapital
- subcultural capital
- trust capital
- venture capital
- weighted-average cost of capital
- working capital
- working capital requirement
- world capital
Related terms
Etymology 2
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A Corinthian capital
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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
capital (plural capitals)
- (countable, architecture) The uppermost part of a column.
- Synonym: chapiter
- 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros, 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
uppermost part of a column
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References
- Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “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: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
- “capitā̆l, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- “capital, n.1”, in OED Online
Anagrams
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