capacity
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
The amount that can be contained.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhpasuhteeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kəˈpæsəti
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The amount that can be contained
“The gas tank has a capacity of 12 gallons.”
The ability to hold, receive, or absorb.
The maximum amount that can be held.
A measure of such ability; volume.
computer science
The amount of information (in bytes) that can be stored on a disk drive
“The capacity of a hard disk drive is usually expressed in megabytes.”
Electrical capacitance.
adjective
Filling the allotted space.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The maximum amount that can be held.
Used this way, capacity is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- capacitance , a specialist term, precise but narrower
- electrical capacity , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use capacity
- “The gas tank has a capacity of 12 gallons.”noun
- “The capacity of a hard disk drive is usually expressed in megabytes.”noun
- “Among his gifts is his capacity for true altruism.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Contained
Mental
Other combinations
Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A unit of measurement of volume or capacity.
A unit of measurement of volume or capacity.
The maximum data rate that can be attained over a given channel.
An electrical phenomenon whereby an electric charge is stored.
The maximum amount of water that a particular soil can hold.
The usable capacity of a disk drive.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An electrical device characterized by its capacity to store an electric charge.
A measure of the capacity of a circuit component to store charge.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: amount that can be contained
Antonyms
Sense: amount that can be contained
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.