capital

Meanings

Noun

• Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as steam shovels (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
• Money and wealth. The means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.
• 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.
• The most important city in the field specified.
• An uppercase letter.
• The uppermost part of a column.
• Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.
• The chief or most important thing.

Adjective

• Of prime importance.
• Chief, in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation.
• Excellent.
• Punishable by, or involving punishment by, death.
• Uppercase.
• Of or relating to the head.

Related

Similar words

• caps (in the plural), majuscule

Opposite words

• minuscule

Origin

• From Middle English capital, borrowed from Latin capitālis (in sense “head of cattle”), from caput (English cap). Use in trade and finance originated in Medieval economies when a common but expensive transaction involved trading heads of cattle.
• Compare chattel, and kith and kine, which also use “cow” to mean “property”.