Capabilities

How to spell capabilities

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce capabilities

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does capabilities mean?

1. nounThe powers, skills, or features that a person, organisation, or system possesses.

Capabilities in a sentence

• The new software expands the team's reporting capabilities considerably.

• The audit measured the firm's manufacturing capabilities against its rivals.

Where does capabilities come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb capere, which literally meant 'to take, seize, or hold'. From it came the Late Latin adjective capabilis, meaning 'able to hold or contain', which passed into English through French in the 1500s as 'capable'. Adding the noun-forming suffix -ity produced 'capability', the quality of being capable, and the plural 'capabilities' came to describe the specific powers, skills, or features something possesses. The same capere root quietly survives in a crowd of everyday relatives such as 'capture', 'capacity', 'receive', and 'accept', all sharing the idea of taking or holding. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: writers hear a vague schwa and may wrongly insert an extra vowel, but the structure is simply capable with its -e dropped before -ility.

How the word is built

• cap- (from Latin capere: to take, hold)
• -able (able to)
• -ity (noun of quality)
• -es (plural)