Capitalized

How to spell capitalized

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce capitalized

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does capitalized mean?

1. verbUsed or exploited a situation to gain an advantage or benefit (usually followed by 'on').
2. verbWrote a word or letter with an initial capital, or in all capital letters.
3. verbProvided a business or venture with the financial capital it needs to operate.

Capitalized in a sentence

• The rival firm capitalized on our delayed launch to win new clients.

• The style guide explained which job titles should be capitalized in formal reports.

• Investors fully capitalized the start-up before its first product shipped.

• She capitalized on the warm weather by selling cold drinks near the beach.

• He capitalized the company name throughout the contract for consistency.

• The bank was poorly capitalized and struggled to cover its loans.

Where does capitalized come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The heart of this word is the Latin caput, meaning 'head', which gave rise to the medieval Latin capitalis, 'of the head' and so 'chief' or 'principal'. From capitalis English eventually drew the noun 'capital', used both for the most important city and, in commerce, for the principal stock of money, the 'head' fund from which a business grows. The verb 'capitalize' was coined from this noun, first in the financial sense of turning assets into usable funds, and later in the figurative sense of making the most of an opportunity. A separate, much more literal use developed in printing, where to capitalize a word is to begin it with a 'capital' letter, the large form historically placed at the head of a section or sentence. The doubled idea of 'head' explains why such different meanings, money, opportunity, and big letters, all live in one word; the spelling trap is purely the unstressed middle, since 'cap-i-tal-ized' hides two reduced vowels that tempt writers to drop or swap a letter.

How the word is built

• capit- (head, from Latin caput)
• -al (adjective)
• -ize (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past tense)

British and American spelling

Capitalized is the American spelling. British English spells it capitalised.