English
capital
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈkæp.ɪ.təl/
Noun

capital

  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.
    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. (countable, architecture) The uppermost part of a column.
  7. (uncountable) Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.
    Interpreters need a good amount of cultural capital in order to function efficiently in the profession.
  8. (countable, by extension) The chief or most important thing.
Synonyms Antonyms Translations Translations Adjective

capital (not comparable)

  1. Of prime importance.
    • a capital article in religion
  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, British, dated) Excellent.
    That is a capital idea!
  4. Involving punishment by death.
    • 1709, Jonathan Swift, A Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners
      many crimes that are capital among us
    • 1649, [John] Milton, [Eikonoklastes]  […], London: Printed by Matthew Simmons,  […], OCLC 1044608640 ↗:
      to put to death a capital offender
    • 2002, Colin Jones (historian), The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 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.
    Antonyms: lower-case
    One begins a sentence with a capital letter.
  6. Of or relating to the head.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 10”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:
      Needs must the Serpent now his capital bruise / Expect with mortal pain.
Translations Translations Translations Translations

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.005
Offline English dictionary