[syn: capital, great, majuscule]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Capital \Cap"i*tal\, a. [F. capital, L. capitalis capital (in
senses 1 & 2), fr. caput head. See Chief, and cf.
Capital, n.]
1. Of or pertaining to the head. [Obs.]
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Needs must the Serpent now his capital bruise
Expect with mortal pain. --Milton.
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2. Having reference to, or involving, the forfeiture of the
head or life; affecting life; punishable with death; as,
capital trials; capital punishment.
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Many crimes that are capital among us. --Swift.
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To put to death a capital offender. --Milton.
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3. First in importance; chief; principal.
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A capital article in religion --Atterbury.
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Whatever is capital and essential in Christianity.
--I. Taylor.
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4. Chief, in a political sense, as being the seat of the
general government of a state or nation; as, Washington
and Paris are capital cities.
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5. Of first rate quality; excellent; as, a capital speech or
song. [Colloq.]
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Capital letter [F, lettre capitale] (Print.), a leading or
heading letter, used at the beginning of a sentence and as
the first letter of certain words, distinguished, for the
most part, both by different form and larger size, from
the small (lower-case) letters, which form the greater
part of common print or writing.
Small capital letters have the form of capital letters and
height of the body of the lower-case letters.
Capital stock, money, property, or stock invested in any
business, or the enterprise of any corporation or
institution. --Abbott.
Syn: Chief; leading; controlling; prominent.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
capital \cap"i*tal\ (k[a^]p"[i^]*tal), n. [Cf. L. capitellum and
capitulum, a small head, the head, top, or capital of a
column, dim. of caput head; F. chapiteau, OF. capitel. See
chief, and cf. cattle, chattel, chapiter, chapter.]
1. (Arch.) The head or uppermost member of a column,
pilaster, etc. It consists generally of three parts,
abacus, bell (or vase), and necking. See these terms, and
Column.
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2. [Cf. F. capilate, fem., sc. ville.] (Geog.) The seat of
government; the chief city or town in a country; a
metropolis. "A busy and splendid capital" --Macauly.
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3. [Cf. F. capital.] Money, property, or stock employed in
trade, manufactures, etc.; the sum invested or lent, as
distinguished from the income or interest. See Capital
stock, under Capital, a.
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4. (Polit. Econ.) That portion of the produce of industry,
which may be directly employed either to support human
beings or to assist in production. --M'Culloch.
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Note: When wealth is used to assist production it is called
capital. The capital of a civilized community includes
fixed capital (i.e. buildings, machines, and roads
used in the course of production and exchange) and
circulating capital (i.e., food, fuel, money, etc.,
spent in the course of production and exchange). --T.
Raleigh.
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5. Anything which can be used to increase one's power or
influence.
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He tried to make capital out of his rival's
discomfiture. --London
Times.
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6. (Fort.) An imaginary line dividing a bastion, ravelin, or
other work, into two equal parts.
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7. A chapter, or section, of a book. [Obs.]
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Holy St. Bernard hath said in the 59th capital.
--Sir W.
Scott.
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8. (Print.) See Capital letter, under Capital, a.
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Active capital. See under Active,
Small capital (Print.), a small capital letter; informally
referred to (in the plural) as small caps; as, the
technical terms are listed in small caps. See under
Capital, a.
To live on one's capital, to consume one's capital without
producing or accumulating anything to replace it.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
capital
adj 1: first-rate; "a capital fellow"; "a capital idea"
2: of primary importance; "our capital concern was to avoid
defeat"
3: uppercase; "capital A"; "great A"; "many medieval manuscripts
are in majuscule script" [syn: capital, great,
majuscule]
n 1: assets available for use in the production of further
assets [syn: capital, working capital]
2: wealth in the form of money or property owned by a person or
business and human resources of economic value
3: a seat of government
4: one of the large alphabetic characters used as the first
letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for
emphasis; "printers once kept the type for capitals and for
small letters in separate cases; capitals were kept in the
upper half of the type case and so became known as upper-case
letters" [syn: capital, capital letter, uppercase,
upper-case letter, majuscule] [ant: lower-case letter,
lowercase, minuscule, small letter]
5: a center that is associated more than any other with some
activity or product; "the crime capital of Italy"; "the drug
capital of Columbia"
6: the federal government of the United States [syn: Capital,
Washington]
7: a book written by Karl Marx (1867) describing his economic
theories [syn: Das Kapital, Capital]
8: the upper part of a column that supports the entablature
[syn: capital, chapiter, cap]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
268 Moby Thesaurus words for "capital":
Grade A, abecedarian, ability, acmatic, advantageous,
all-absorbing, allographic, alphabetic, apical, arch, art center,
ascender, assets, auspicious, available means, back, balance,
banner, basic, bastard type, beard, belly, beneficial, benevolent,
bevel, black letter, body, bon, bonny, bracket capital, braw,
bueno, cap, capacity, capital city, capital gains distribution,
capital goods, capital structure, capitalization, cardinal, case,
cash, central, champion, chief, choice, circulating capital, cock,
cogent, commendable, consummate, controlling, cornice, corpus,
counter, county seat, county site, county town, crown, crowning,
dandy, descender, devices, disposable resources, dominant, elegant,
em, en, equity capital, essential, estimable, excellent, expedient,
extraordinary, face, fair, famous, fat-faced type, favorable, feet,
finances, financial, fine, first, first-class, first-rate,
first-string, fiscal, fixed capital, flagrant, floating capital,
focal, font, foremost, fund, fundamental, funds, garment center,
glaring, good, goodly, grand, graphemic, great, grist, groove,
gross, head, headmost, healthy, hegemonic, helpful, highest,
holdings, ideographic, important, initial, italic, kind, laudable,
leading, letter, lettered, lexigraphic, ligature, liquid assets,
literal, logogrammatic, logographic, logotype, lower case,
lower-case, magisterial, main, major, majuscule,
manufacturing center, master, matchless, maximal, maximum, mean,
means, medical center, meridian, meridional, method, metropolis,
minuscular, minuscule, monetary, money, moneyed capital, nice,
nick, noble, number one, numismatic, nummary, outstanding,
overmost, overriding, overruling, paramount, pecuniary, peerless,
pi, pica, pictographic, pleasant, point, power, predominant,
preeminent, premier, preponderant, prevailing, primal, primary,
prime, principal, print, profitable, property, railroad center,
rank, ranking, recourses, regal, resorts, resource, resources,
ripping, roman, royal, ruling, sans serif, savings, script, seat,
seat of government, select, shank, shipping center, shire town,
shopping center, shoulder, skillful, small cap, small capital,
smashing, sound, sovereign, splendid, stamp, star, stellar, stem,
sterling, stock, summital, sumptuary, super, superb, supereminent,
superior, supply, supreme, tip-top, top, top-hole, top-notch,
topflight, topmost, topping, tourist center, trade center,
transliterated, type, type body, type class, type lice, typecase,
typeface, typefounders, typefoundry, ultimate, uncial, underlying,
upmost, upper case, upper-case, uppermost, urban center, useful,
valid, venture capital, vertical, very good, virtuous, vital, ways,
ways and means, wealth, wherewith, wherewithal, working capital,
zenithal
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):
CAPITAL, political economy, commerce. In political economy, it is that
portion of the produce of a country, which may be made directly available
either to support the human species or to the facilitating of production.
2. In commerce, as applied to individuals, it is those objects, whether
consisting of money or other property, which a merchant, trader, or other
person adventures in an undertaking, or which he contributes to the common
stock of a partnership. 2 Bouv. Inst. n. 1458.
3. It signifies money put out at interest.
4. The fund of a trading company or corporation is also called capital,
but in this sense the word stock is generally added to it; thus we say the
capital stock of the Bank of North America.
The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):
CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire,
the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the
anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the
disgrace before meat. _Capital Punishment_, a penalty regarding the
justice and expediency of which many worthy persons -- including all
the assassins -- entertain grave misgivings.