capital

capital city (city designated as seat of government)


capital

ca-adj

capital m or f (masculine and feminine plural capitals)


capital

factor of production
factor of production

(uncountable, economics) Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as steam shovels (equipment) and office buildings (structures).

He does not have enough capital to start a business.

(uncountable, business, finance, insurance) Money and wealth. The means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.

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.

1995, Linda Fang, The Chʻi-lin Purse: A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 54:

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.

2005, Sharon Grehan, Random Acts of Malice, page 56:

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.

2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:

Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States of America.

The Welsh government claims that Cardiff is Europe’s youngest capital.

(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.

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) The most important city in the field specified.

Interpreters need a good amount of cultural capital in order to function efficiently in the profession.

(uncountable) Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.

(countable, by extension) The chief or most important thing.

en-noun

capital (countable and uncountable, plural capitals)

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.
Compare chattel and kith and kine (“all one’s possessions”), which also use “cow” to mean “property”.
Doublet of cattle and chattel.

[ˈkʰæp.ɪ.ɾɫ̩]


capital

a capital article in religion

1708, Francis Atterbury, Fourteen Sermons Preach'd on Several Occasions, Preface:

whatever is capital and essential in Christianity

London and Paris are capital cities.

Chief (in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation).

That is a capital idea!

“He is a capital fellow,” the Englishman in London had said, “and he has got an awfully pretty wife. […]”

1878, Henry James, An International Episode:

Sometimes he laughed heartily as if he heard some capital joke; by degrees this lessened, and he spoke rapidly, but in very low tones.

1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 166:

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.

1709, [Jonathan Swift], A Project for the Advancement of Religion, and the Reformation of Manners. […], London: […] Benj[amin] Tooke, […], →OCLC, pages 53–54:

to put to death a capital offender

1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC:

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.

2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 517:

(crime) Punishable by, or involving punishment by, death.

One begins a sentence with a capital letter.

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.

2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC:

used to emphasise greatness or absoluteness

Needs must the Serpent now his capital bruise / Expect with mortal pain.

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:

capital

punishable by, or involving punishment by, death

[ˈkʰæp.ɪ.ɾɫ̩]


capital

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: […]

1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros, London: Jonathan Cape, page 3:

(countable, architecture) The uppermost part of a column.

From Middle English capitale, partly from Old French capital and partly from Late Latin capitellum (“capital or chapiter of a column”), 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.

doublet

[ˈkʰæp.ɪ.ɾɫ̩]


capital

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of cheptel.


capital

La peine capitale est abolie en France depuis les années 1980.

Capital punishment was abolished in France in the 1980s.

fr-adj

capital (feminine capitale, masculine plural capitaux, feminine plural capitales)

capitale (feminine)
capitaux (masculine plural)
capitales (feminine plural)


capital

capital facere

a capital offence; a crime punishable by death, civil death, or exile

la-noun

capital n (genitive capitālis); third declension

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

[ˈkäpɪt̪äɫ̪]

Substantive form of capitālis (“mortal, relating to the head”).


capital

(geopolitics) capital; capital city (place where the seat of a government is located)

(figurative) capital (the most important place associated with something)

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of cabedal and caudal.


capital

(finances) capital (money that can be used to acquire goods and services)

(figurative) anything of prime importance


capital

(law) capital (involving punishment by death)

(rare, anatomy) capital (relating to the head)


capital

capitaluri (plural)
capital (accusative indefinite nominative singular)
capitalul (accusative definite nominative singular)
capitaluri (accusative indefinite nominative singular)
capitalurile (accusative definite nominative plural)
capital (indefinite singular)
capitalului (definite singular)
capitaluri (indefinite singular)
capitalurilor (definite plural)
capitalule (singular vocative)
capitalurilor (vocative)

Borrowed from French capital, Latin capitālis.


capital

ro-adj

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

capitală (feminine singular)
capitali (masculine plural)
capitale (feminine neuter plural)
capital (indefinite masculine neuter singular)
capitală (feminine indefinite singular)
capitali (indefinite masculine singular)
capitale (feminine indefinite neuter plural)
capitalul (definite masculine neuter singular)
capitala (definite feminine singular)
capitalii (definite masculine singular)
capitalele (definite feminine neuter plural)
capitale (feminine indefinite singular)
capitalului (definite masculine neuter singular)
capitalei (definite feminine singular)
capitalilor (definite masculine singular)
capitalelor (definite feminine neuter plural)


capital

(Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) capital

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


capital

Es asunto de capital importancia.

Lo condenaron a la pena capital.

es-adj

capital m or f (masculine and feminine plural capitales)

Borrowed from Latin capitālis. Doublet of caudal.