capital

Universal Words noun, adjective noun city 1 (also capital city) [C] the most important town or city of a country, usually where the central government operates from: Cairo is the capital of Egypt. * Troops are stationed in and around the capital. * a tour of six European capital cities * (figurative) Paris, the fashion capital of the world money 2 [sing.] a large amount of money that is invested or is used to start a business: to set up a business with a starting capital of ｣100000 3 [U] wealth or property that is owned by a business or a person: capital assets * capital expenditure (= money that an organization spends on buildings, equipment, etc.) 4 [U] (technical) people who use their money to start businesses, considered as a group: capital and labour letter 5 (also capital letter) [C] a letter of the form and size that is used at the beginning of a sentence or a name (= A,B,C rather than a,b,c): Use block capitals (= separate capital letters). * Please write in capitals / in capital letters. architecture 6 the top part of a column IDIOMS make capital (out) of sth to use a situation for your own advantage: The opposition parties are all making political capital out of the disagreements within the government. adjective punishment 1 [onlybeforenoun] involving punishment by death: a capital offence letter 2 [onlybeforenoun] (of letters of the alphabet) having the form and size used at the beginning of a sentence or a name: English is written with a capital 'E'. compareLOWERCASE excellent 3 (old-fashioned, BrE) excellent IDIOMS with a capital A, B, etc. used to emphasize that a word has a stronger meaning than usual in a particular situation: He was romantic with a capital R.