capital
Part of speech: noun
adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
economics
finance
government
insurance
politics
sciences
Etymology: From Middle English capital, borrowed partly from Old French capital and partly from Latin capitālis (“of the head”) (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. In the fourth sense, displaced native Old English hēafodburg, equivalent to head + borough (“city”).
Compare chattel and kith and kine (“all one’s possessions”), which also use “cow” to mean “property”.
Doublet of cattle and chattel.
Inflected forms:
form: capitals
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: capitall
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: capitall
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: Money and wealth: the means to acquire or produce goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: Near-synonym: assets
He does not have enough capital to start a business.
gloss: Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as tools and bulldozers (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: Near-synonym: assets
He pointed out that it takes both labour and capital to produce goods.
gloss: The capitalist class; investors considered collectively with respect to their societal (economic, political, cultural, etc.) influence.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: The markets crashing symbolized capital’s discontent with the tax reforms passed.
He warned us darkly that capital will never be sated.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States of America.
The Welsh government claims that Cardiff is Europe’s youngest capital.
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.
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.
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.
State legislative races tend to come cheap, with low turnout and tiny margins despite how state capitals have taken on an ever larger role amid legislative stalemate in Washington, DC. In 2020, a combined total of 46,000 votes determined which party was in majority control in 13 different state legislature chambers across the country.
Wearing his best suit and sunglasses, the sultan of Slowjamastan officially declared independence from the United States of America at 12:26 p.m. on December 1, 2021 as he broadcast the secession live from his open-air government “office” in Dublândia, the capital of the Republic of Slowjamastan.
gloss: The most important city in the field specified.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: Hollywood is the film capital, New York the theater capital, Las Vegas the gambling capital.
gloss: An uppercase letter.
pos: noun
tags: countable
gloss: Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: Interpreters need a good amount of cultural capital in order to function efficiently in the profession.
gloss: The chief or most important thing.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
countable
gloss: Of prime importance.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: a capital article in religion
whatever is capital and essential in Christianity
gloss: Chief (in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation).
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: London and Paris are capital cities.
gloss: Excellent.
pos: adj
tags: UK
comparable
dated
not-comparable
examples: a capital fellow
That is a capital idea!
“He is a capital fellow,” the Englishman in London had said, “and he has got an awfully pretty wife. […]”
Sometimes he laughed heartily as if he heard some capital joke; by degrees this lessened, and he spoke rapidly, but in very low tones.
"He really is a capital fellow, isn't he?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, when Veslovsky had gone out and the peasant had closed the door after him.
"Yes, capital," answered Levin, still thinking of the subject of their conversation just before.
gloss: Punishable by, or involving punishment by, death.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: capital punishment; capital murder
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.
to put to death a capital offender
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.
gloss: Uppercase.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: One begins a sentence with a capital letter.
gloss: Uppercase.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: You're a genius with a capital G!
He's dead with a capital D!
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.
gloss: Of or relating to the head.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: Needs must the Serpent now his capital bruise / Expect with mortal pain.
Related words: capita
capitol
capitulate
capitulation
captain
chapiter
chapter
Derived words: 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-G gamer
capital good
capital goods
capital grant
capital intensive
capital-intensive
capital investment
capitalism
capitalistic
capitalitis
capitalize
capital letter
capital loss
capitally
capital market
capital market line
capital messuage
capital murder
capitalness
capital offence
capital offense
capital punishment
Capital Regional District
capital share
capital ship
capital stock
capital structure
capital surplus
capital value
capital virtues
capital war
capitonym
countercapital
cultural capital
cybercapital
drop capital
economic capital
erotic capital
financial capital
fixed capital
human capital
in capital letters
intellectual capital
make capital out of
marginal cost of capital
medial capital
National Capital Region
noncapital
personal capital
political capital
real capital
risk capital
seed 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
Translations:
lang: Armenian
word: մեծատառ
roman: mecataṙ
lang: Bulgarian
word: главен
roman: glaven
lang: Catalan
word: majúscula
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 大寫的 /大写的
roman: dàxiě de
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 大寫 /大写
roman: dàxiě
lang: Dutch
word: hoofd
lang: Finnish
word: versaali
lang: Finnish
word: iso
lang: French
word: majuscule
lang: German
word: Groß-
lang: Greek
word: κεφαλαίος
roman: kefalaíos
lang: Hungarian
word: nagy
lang: Hungarian
word: nagybetűs
lang: Hungarian
word: nagy kezdőbetűs
lang: Indonesian
word: kapital
lang: Italian
word: maiuscolo
lang: Japanese
word: 大文字の
roman: ōmoji no
lang: Korean
word: 대문자(大文字)의
roman: daemunja-ui
lang: Polish
word: duży
lang: Polish
word: duża
lang: Portuguese
word: maiúsculo
lang: Russian
word: загла́вный
roman: zaglávnyj
lang: Russian
word: большо́й
roman: bolʹšój
lang: Spanish
word: capital
lang: Spanish
word: versal
lang: Spanish
word: titular
lang: Ukrainian
word: заголовний
roman: zaholovnyj
lang: Volapük
word: mayudik