Other forms: capitals
The capital is the city where a country's government sits — Paris, Tokyo, Ottawa. It is not always the biggest city: Australia's capital is Canberra rather than Sydney, and Turkey's is Ankara rather than Istanbul.
In business, capital is money put into something in order to make more money: start-up capital, raising capital, capital costs as against running costs. A capital is also a big letter — write your name in capitals, A is a capital and a is not. As an adjective it means punishable by death, in capital punishment and a capital offence, and there is a dated use meaning excellent that you meet only in old books: a capital idea! Two traps worth marking: capital the city against Capitol the building in Washington, and make capital out of something, which means turn it to your own advantage.
1nouncapitalThe city where a country's or region's government is based.
“They moved to the capital for work and never left.”
2nounmoneyMoney or property used to start or grow a business.
“The company raised enough capital to open two more shops.”
3nounformA large form of a letter, as in A rather than a.
“Write your surname in capitals.”
4adjectivewrittenWritten as a large letter.
“German gives every noun a capital letter.”
5adjectivepunishablePunishable by death.
“Murder was a capital offence there until 1965.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
capital is a city.
Also accepted in games: capital city
Capital comes from Latin capitālis, 'of the head', from caput, 'head'. The money sense grew out of medieval trade, where a big transaction meant trading heads of cattle — which is why capital is a doublet of cattle and of chattel, three words carrying the same idea of a cow as property. The capital city is the head city, and the capital letter is the one at the head of the sentence.
Latin
capitālis
Old French
capital
Middle English
capital
English, today
capital
Built from
From Middle English capital, from Old French capital, from Latin capitālis. 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. 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. In the fourth sense, displaced native Old English hēafodburg, equivalent to head + borough (“city”). Compare chattel and kith and kine (“all one’s possessions”), which also use “cow” to mean “property”.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA