The root word capit means “head.” Today we will undertake a capital podcast so that you can hold up your “head” when seeing words with capit in them!
The capital of a state is its “head” city. The Capitol Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. is where Congress meets, the “head” lawmaking body of the United States; each state has its own capitol building as well, where laws are made by their respective state legislatures.
A capital letter is always used at the beginning or “head” of a sentence. Proper nouns are capitalized to show that they are important, that is, are “heads” above more lowly nouns. Speaking of being “heads” above, the captain of a ship is, you guessed it, the “head” of a ship. The Latin root word capit also gave rise to the word for captain in numerous Romance languages, including the Spanish capitan, French capitaine, Italian capitano, and Portuguese capitao.
A pirate captain might decapitate an enemy, or cut off his “head!” Pirates wear great hats, a little more glorified than say baseball *cap*s, which also sit on “heads.”
When economists talk about per capita income, they are talking about the amount of money that each individual person makes, that is, they are counting by each and everyone’s “head.” When judges speak of capital punishment, they are referring to a severe penalty that mortally affects the “head” of a convicted criminal, thus ending his life.
A couple of words that come from capit form interesting word histories. The word cattle, for instance, once referred to a farmer’s “head” or most valuable property; these bulls and cows were numbered in “head” of cattle. And a chapter in a book forms a “heading” for an important section.
Hopefully I don’t have to recapitulate, or go back to the “head” point of this podcast, for your “head” to remember that capit means “head!”
- capital: ‘head’ city of a state
- Capitol Building: ‘head’ building of Congress
- Capitol Hill: ‘head’ hill in Washington, D.C.
- capital letter: used at the ‘head’ of a sentence, or for a ‘head’ noun
- captain: ‘head’ of something, like a ship
- capitan: Spanish word for ‘head’ of something
- capitaine: French word for ‘head’ of something
- capitano: Italian word for ‘head’ of something
- capitao: Portuguese word for ‘head’ of something
- decapitate: to cut off the ‘head’
- cap: covering for the ‘head’
- per capita: by the ‘head’
- capital punishment: taking the ‘head,’ or the life, of a criminal
- cattle: ‘head’ property of a farmer
- chapter: ‘head’ of part of a book
- recapitulate: come back to the ‘head’ again