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Capitalise or capitalize?

In American English write capitalize; in British and Commonwealth English, capitalise. capitalise is a verb meaning “Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of capitalize”; capitalize is a verb meaning “In writing or editing, to write (something: either an entire word or text, or…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) capitalize is about 4.5 times as common as capitalise.

capitaliseorcapitalize

What is the difference between capitalise and capitalize?

capitalisecapitalize
Part of speechverbverb
Meaning

In writing or editing, to write (something: either an entire word or text, or just the initial letter(s) thereof) in capital letters, in upper case

To contribute or acquire capital (money or other resources) for

Examplenone recordedIn German, all nouns are capitalized
Formscapitalises, capitalising, capitalisedcapitalizes, capitalizing, capitalized
Pronunciationnot recorded/ˈkæpətəˌlaɪz/
RegionUKno label
In writingabout once in every 2 million words2.2 times per million words

Sources: capitalise and capitalize 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 capitalise and capitalize

capitalize

  1. 1

    verb In writing or editing, to write (something: either an entire word or text, or just the initial letter(s) thereof) in capital letters, in upper case

    In German, all nouns are capitalized

  2. 2

    verb To contribute or acquire capital (money or other resources) for

    Some states require proof that a new venture is properly capitalized before the state will issue a certificate of incorporation

  3. 3

    verb To convert into capital, i.e., to get cash or similar immediately fungible resources for some less fungible property or source of future income

    If we obtain a loan using the business as collateral, the effect will be to capitalize our next ten years of income, giving us cash today that we can use to buy out our competitor

  4. 4

    verb To treat as capital, not as an expense

  5. 5

    verb To profit or to obtain an advantage

    The home team took several shots on goal but was unable to capitalize until late in the game

  6. 6

    verb To seize, as an opportunity; to obtain a benefit from; to invest on something profitable

    The home team appeared to have the advantage throughout the game, and finally capitalized on their opponents' weakness with just two minutes remaining, scoring several points in…

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, capitalise or capitalize?

capitalise appears about once in every 2 million words; capitalize 2.2 times per million words.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How many people search capitalise vs capitalize?

“capitalise vs capitalize” is searched about 40 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“capitalize vs capitalise”, “capitalise or capitalize”).

Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.

The words