Capacitor

How to spell capacitor

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce capacitor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does capacitor mean?

1. nounAn electronic component that stores electric charge between two conductive plates.

Capacitor in a sentence

• The technician replaced a faulty capacitor on the circuit board.

• A charged capacitor can hold enough energy to give a painful shock.

Where does capacitor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word capacitor comes from the Latin capax, meaning 'able to hold or contain', which itself was built on capere, 'to take or seize'. From capax came the noun capacitas, 'the ability to hold', the same root that gives English 'capacity' and 'capable'. When early electrical engineers needed a name for a component that holds electric charge, they took that idea of holding and added the device-forming suffix -or, giving 'capacitor'. The term gradually replaced the older name 'condenser' during the twentieth century as electronics became a mature field. Remembering that a capacitor literally 'holds capacity' helps fix the c-a-p-a-c spelling, with the soft second c sounding like an s.

How the word is built

• capac- (from Latin capax: able to hold)
• -it-
• -or (agent/device suffix)