capacious

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin capāx (“able to take in”), stem capāc-,^[2][3][4][5] with the ending -ious,^[2][5][6] from capiō (“to take, hold, contain”),^[3][4][7] from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp”).^[4][7] Weekley took it as replacing the obsolete capace,^[8] and Dictionary.com analyses it as capacity with -ous.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of such size as to take in or hold something, able to contain: 1614, in Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World: “The Arke..was sufficiently capacious to containe of all.”^[2][3] Etymonline gives the 1610s,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates its sense “able to contain a great deal” to 1606.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense did not imply great size, only enough room for what was named, and it could take of or an infinitive: a harbour “capacious of many thousand sail”.^[10][5] It is now obsolete, its last OED record being of 1779.^[2][4] The modern sense, able to hold much, is in the OED from 1656, in a translation of Hobbes,^[2] though Etymonline dates it to the 1630s.^[4] A related use, disposed or adapted to receive something, is recorded from 1677 and is now archaic.^[2][10] Johnson (1755) gave a physical and a mental sense, “able to hold much” and “equal to much knowledge, or great design”, the second illustrated from Watts with “a capacious mind”,^[11] and Hazlitt wrote of “the capacious soul of Shakspeare”.^[10]

Timeline

• 1614 – able to contain; of a size to hold something (obsolete by 1779).^[2][3]
• 1656 – able to hold much; roomy, spacious.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates this sense to 1606, and Etymonline to the 1630s.^[5][4]
• 1677 – disposed or adapted to receive something (now archaic).^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Able to hold a great deal; roomy, spacious: She packed everything into one capacious suitcase.^[12][5][2]
2. Wide in scope; comprehensive, especially of the mind: a capacious memory.^[5][11][10]
3. (archaic) Disposed or adapted to receive something.^[2][10]
4. (obsolete, 1614–1779) Of a size to contain something; followed by of or an infinitive.^[2][5]

Word family

• capaciously
• capaciousness
• uncapacious

Related words

• capable
• capacity
• captive
• heave

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins