capitulate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin capitulō (“to arrange in chapters; to stipulate, agree”), taken from its past participle.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The Medieval Latin verb comes from capitulum (“head of a discourse, chapter; literally a little head”),^[2][4][6] a diminutive of caput (“head”),^[6][7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *kaput- (“head”).^[6] Barnhart and Etymonline think the English verb also owes something to the earlier noun capitulation,^[7][6] and Barnhart to the earlier adjective capitulate, "stipulated".^[7] The sense of surrender came through or under the influence of French capituler,^[3][7] and the Oxford Dictionary of English takes the whole word from French.^[8] The OED compares Dutch capituleren and German kapitulieren, and dates the French verb's sense "to surrender" to 1751, later than the English one.^[2] It is related to chapter and recapitulate.^[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To draw up articles of agreement, to treat or parley: 1537, in a letter of T. Wyatt.^[2] The Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford agree on the mid 16th century,^[8][3] while Barnhart has 1580,^[7] Etymonline the 1590s,^[6] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged 1596.^[4]

Semantic evolution

An agreement was drawn up under separate heads, and to capitulate was at first simply to make one.^[6][10] Trench (1859) noted that the victor could capitulate as well as the vanquished, and that the limitation to surrender on stated terms was "quite of modern introduction";^[11] he quotes Holland's Plutarch's Morals, where Gelon the tyrant "capitulated" with the Carthaginians he had defeated.^[11] The verb was also used of drawing up a text in chapters, from 1566.^[2] Because the word was so often used of terms of surrender, it came to mean yielding to an enemy on terms.^[6] The OED first finds this in 1601, in Bacon,^[2] while Etymonline dates it to the 1680s,^[6] Barnhart to 1689,^[7] and the Shorter Oxford to the late 17th century.^[3] Johnson (1755) still gave both "to draw up any thing in heads or articles" and "to yield, or surrender up, on certain stipulations".^[12] The looser sense of giving way in anything is recorded from 1714, in the Spectator.^[2]

Timeline

• 1537 – to draw up articles of agreement; to treat, parley.^[2]
• 1566 – to draw up a text in chapters or under heads.^[2]
• 1567 – to make terms about something, to negotiate it (obsolete by 1880).^[2]
• 1601 – of a force, garrison or town, to surrender, especially on stated conditions.^[2]
• 1610 – to surrender something on terms.^[2]
• 1714 – figuratively, to yield or give in.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To surrender, especially on agreed conditions: The fort capitulated after a six-week siege.^[13][4][2]
2. To give way or stop resisting; to yield: The board finally capitulated to the tenants' demands.^[2][4][13]
3. (archaic) To draw up terms; to parley or negotiate.^[2][4]
4. (rare) To draw up a text under heads; to enumerate or specify.^[2]
5. (obsolete, 1567–1880) To make terms about something; to negotiate it.^[2][3]

Word family

• capitulant
• capitulator
• uncapitulated

Related words

• chapiter
• chapter
• capital
• capitalism
• captain
• capitulation
• chef
• chief
• recapitulate

Usage notes

The botanical adjective capitulate, having a small rounded head, is from Latin capitulātus (“having a head or terminal knob”), and the OED records it from 1818,^[2] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged treats it as capitellate.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins