kaput

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kəˈpʊt/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German kaputt (“destroyed, ruined”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from French capot, used of a player who had not won a single trick at piquet.^[2][5][6] The German word probably comes from the phrase capot machen, a partial translation of French faire capot,^[3][4] and French capot itself meant “cover, bonnet”.^[3][4] The American Heritage Dictionary traces it further to a Provençal word whose first element is cap “head”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Finished, worn out, dead or destroyed (1895).^{[2][3][4][5][7]}

Semantic evolution

From the card table the German word spread to anything ruined or lost.^[2][4] It was popularized in English during the First World War,^[4] and it now commonly describes a machine that has stopped working.^[7][5][6]

Timeline

• 1640s – German capot “destroyed, ruined”.^[4]
• 1895 – first recorded in English.^{[2][3][4][5][7]}

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Utterly finished, defeated or destroyed.
2. No longer working; useless or broken.
3. Hopelessly outmoded.

Related words

• capot
• capote
• cape

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press