capacity

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kəˈpæs.ə.ti/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English capacite,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French capacité (“ability to hold”),^[2][4][5] from Latin capācitās (“breadth; capability of holding much”) (accusative capācitātem),^[2][4] from capāx (“able to hold much”),^[2][4] from capere (“to take, hold”),^[2][5] from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp”).^[2] It is related to capable, capacious and capture.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The ability to contain, size or extent, and also legal, moral or intellectual ability: the early 15th century in Etymonline,^[2] probably before 1425 in translations of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie and Higden's Polychronicon according to Barnhart.^[4] The OED's first example is from 1481.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense, mental capacity, is from 1578.^[6] The power of an apparatus to store electricity is from 1777,^[2][6] and of absorbing heat or moisture from 1793.^[6] The power of holding a certain quantity, as of traffic, is from 1885,^[2][6] and the largest audience a place can hold from 1908, hence a capacity crowd.^[2][6] The industrial sense, the ability to produce, is from 1931.^[2][6] Merriam-Webster dates the adjective, “filling to capacity”, to 1897.^[3]

Timeline

• early 15th century – ability to contain.^[2][4]
• 1578 – mental capacity.^[6]
• 1777 – electrical capacity.^[2][6]
• 1885 – carrying capacity.^[2][6]
• 1897 – adjective.^[3]
• 1908 – a full house.^[2][6]
• 1931 – productive capacity.^[2][6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The ability to receive, hold or absorb; volume.
2. The largest amount that can be contained: filled to capacity.
3. Ability to do or produce something; capability.
4. Mental ability.
5. A position or role: in her capacity as chair.
6. Legal competence.

Adjective

1. Filling a space to its limit: a capacity crowd.

Word family

• incapacity
• overcapacity
• carrying capacity
• diminished capacity
• heat capacity
• molar heat capacity
• vital capacity
• field capacity

Related words

• capacious
• capacitance
• capacitate
• capacitive
• capacitation
• capacitor
• capable
• capture
• captive

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press