capital
/ˈkæpɪtəl/
"capital" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“capital” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,044 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,044
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Money and wealth: the means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | capital |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkæpɪtəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #1,044 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “capital” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for capital is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkæpɪtəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,044 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for capital, with forms such as "acpital", "caiptal", and "capiatl". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "capitol", "capitan", "capita", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 M… The correct English form is capital, spelled C-A-P-I-T-A-L.
Definition
- 1Money and wealth: the means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.
- 2Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as tools and bulldozers (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
- 3The capitalist class; investors considered collectively with respect to their societal (economic, political, cultural, etc.) influence.
- 4A 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.
- 5The most important city in the field specified.
- 6An uppercase letter.
- 7Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.
- 8The chief or most important thing.
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.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acpital,caiptal,capiatl,capitall,capitla,capittal,cappital,captial,ccapital,cpaital
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of capital - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “capital”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-P-I-T-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkæpɪtəl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “capitol” - see the side-by-side comparison. capital vs capitol
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.