# capital

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈkæpɪtəl/ · frequency rank #1,044

## Definitions
1. Money and wealth: the means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.
2. Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as tools and bulldozers (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
3. The capitalist class; investors considered collectively with respect to their societal (economic, political, cultural, etc.) influence.
4. A 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.
5. The most important city in the field specified.
6. An uppercase letter.
7. Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.
8. The 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.

## Easily confused with
- **capitol** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/capital-vs-capitol)
- **capitan** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/capital-vs-capitan)
- **capita** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/capita-vs-capital)

## Common misspellings (10)
`acpital`, `caiptal`, `capiatl`, `capitall`, `capitla`, `capittal`, `cappital`, `captial`, `ccapital`, `cpaital`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/capital