capital

Meaning

Noun

1. Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as steam shovels (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
2. Money and wealth. The means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.
3. 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.
4. The most important city in the field specified.
5. An uppercase letter.
6. Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.
7. The chief or most important thing.

Adj

1. Of prime importance.
2. Chief, in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation.
3. Excellent.
4. Punishable by, or involving punishment by, death.
5. Uppercase.
6. Uppercase.
7. Of or relating to the head.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈkæpɪtəl/

Etymology

From Middle English capital, borrowed partly from Old French capital and partly from Latin capitālis (“of the head”) (in sense “head of cattle”), from caput (“head”) (English cap) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives). Use in trade and finance originated in Medieval economies when a common but expensive transaction involved trading heads of cattle. The noun is from the adjective.
Compare chattel and kith and kine (“all one’s possessions”), which also use “cow” to mean “property”.
Doublet of cattle and chattel.

Sentences

The asteroid is named after the Japanese capital Tokyo .

It is the capital of Zamfara State .

The organisation was again profitable and repaying its capital costs .