capital
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kapuhtuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkæpətəl
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
Wealth in the form of money or property owned by a person or business and human resources of economic value
uncountablebusinessfinanceinsurance
Money and wealth. The means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.
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.
Assets available for use in the production of further assets
uncountableeconomics
Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as steam shovels (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
The federal government of the United States
adjective
Chief (in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation).
Uppercase.
Of prime importance.
Of or relating to the head.
Used to emphasise greatness or absoluteness
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, capital is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in government or politics contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Government/politics
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Federal
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
One of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis.
A tax on capital gains.
The opportunity cost of the funds employed as the result of an investment decision.
The amount by which the selling price of an asset exceeds the purchase price.
That part of the balance of payments recording a nation's outflow and inflow of financial securities.
A tax on capital or property.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An economic system based on private ownership of capital.
Writing in capital letters.
Writing in capital letters.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: wealth in the form of money
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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.