Etymologically
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capacity

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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
  • 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