capital

«capital» in Mova's school dictionary: the city where a country's or state's government is — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a capital, capitals); adjective (capital)

meaning for a pupil

1) A capital (city) is the city where a country's or state's government is. tree →

2) A capital (letter) is a big letter, like A, B, C. tree →

3) Capital is money used to start or run a business. tree →

4) Capital punishment is the punishment of death (in law). tree →

5) Capital can also mean excellent or very good, an old-fashioned word of praise. tree →

sense in the lessons

In geography, London is the capital of the UK, Washington, D.C. of the USA, Ottawa of Canada, Canberra of Australia, Wellington of New Zealand and Dublin of Ireland; states and provinces also have capitals. In English lessons, use a capital letter at the start of a sentence, for names of people and places, for «I», days and months. In maths and business, «capital» is money to start a shop.

examples

• Paris is the capital of France. tree →
• Start every sentence with a capital letter. tree →
• Canberra, not Sydney, is the capital of Australia. tree →
• Write your name in capitals. tree →
• Ottawa is the capital of Canada. tree →
• «I» is always a capital letter. tree →
• They needed capital to open the bakery. tree →
• Albany is the capital of New York State. tree →
• Ah, yes; sleep is a capital invention. tree →

note

Countable: a capital, capitals. Trap: «capital» (the city) vs «Capitol» (the building in Washington where Congress meets). Many capitals are not the biggest city: Canberra (not Sydney), Ottawa (not Toronto), Washington (not New York). «Capital letters» = «upper case».

In the corpora

• He is running about lighting lamps and candles: «What a capital little house this is!
• «What a capital little house this is! … Everything here and everything in its place!» (Capital = excellent.)
• Capital letters go at the start of sentences and names only, never in the middle of words.
• It starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark.
• A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «capital» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.