Capacity or compacity?
capacity is a noun meaning “The ability to hold, receive, or absorb”; compacity is a noun meaning “Any of several technical measures of compactness, especially, in a granular…”.
What is the difference between capacity and compacity?
| capacity | compacity | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective | noun |
| Meaning | The ability to hold, receive, or absorb A measure of such ability; volume Filling the allotted space | Any of several technical measures of compactness, especially, in a granular medium (e.g. sand), the volume fraction that is filled |
| Example | It was hauling a capacity load | none recorded |
| Forms | capacities | compacities |
| Pronunciation | /kəˈpæsɪti/ /kəˈpasɪtɪj/ /kəˈpasɪte/ | not recorded |
| In writing | 51 times per million words | too rare to measure |
Sources: capacity and compacity in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of capacity and compacity
capacity
- 1
The ability to hold, receive, or absorb
- 2
Filling the allotted space
- 3
A measure of such ability; volume
- 4
The maximum amount that can be held
It was hauling a capacity load
- 5
Capability; the ability to perform some task
- 6
The maximum that can be produced
- 7
The maximum that can be produced on a machine or in a facility or group
Its capacity rating was 150 tons per hour, but its actual maximum capacity was 200 tons per hour
- 8
The potential for growth and development
compacity
- 1
Any of several technical measures of compactness, especially, in a granular medium (e.g. sand), the volume fraction that is filled
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, capacity or compacity?
capacity appears 51 times per million words; compacity too rarely to measure.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search capacity vs compacity?
“capacity vs compacity” is searched about 10 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.