capital

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}]
    

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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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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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.
    

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. 
    

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