Capsule

How to spell capsule

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce capsule

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does capsule mean?

1. nounA small soluble case holding a dose of medicine, or any small sealed container.
2. adjectiveCompact or condensed into a very small form, as with a limited selection of essentials.

Capsule in a sentence

• noun

  The pharmacist told her to swallow one capsule with breakfast.

• adjective

  She packed a capsule wardrobe of ten versatile pieces for the trip.

• noun

  Each capsule holds enough fish oil for a single day.

• adjective

  The magazine ran a capsule review of the year in three short paragraphs.

Where does capsule come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin capsula, meaning 'little box', a diminutive of capsa, which was a chest, case, or holder (the same capsa that gives English the word 'case'). It entered English in the early 1600s by way of French capsule, at first as a botanical and anatomical term for a small enclosing membrane or seed pod. From that idea of a tiny container the medical sense of a soluble shell holding a dose of medicine developed in the 1800s, and the twentieth century added the spacecraft 'capsule', the small detachable cabin that carries the crew. The spelling keeps the Latin diminutive ending -ule rather than the more familiar -le, which is the part writers tend to second-guess. Knowing that it literally means 'little box' makes the caps- spelling easy to hold onto.

How the word is built

• caps- (from Latin capsa: box, case)
• -ule (diminutive suffix: little)