capture
Americanverb (used with object)
-
captures,
present (3rd person singular)
-
captured,
past participle, past
-
capturing
present participle
-
to take by force or stratagem; take prisoner; seize.
The police captured the burglar.
- Antonyms:
- release
-
to gain control of or exert influence over.
an ad that captured our attention;
a TV show that captured 30% of the prime-time audience.
-
to take possession of, as in a game or contest.
to capture a pawn in chess.
-
to represent or record in lasting form.
The movie succeeded in capturing the atmosphere of Berlin in the 1930s.
-
Computers.
-
to enter (data) into a computer for processing or storage.
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to record (data) in preparation for such entry.
-
noun
-
captures
plural
-
the act of capturing.
- Synonyms:
- apprehension, arrest, seizure
- Antonyms:
- release
-
the thing or person captured.
-
Physics. the process in which an atomic or nuclear system acquires an additional particle.
-
Crystallography. substitution in a crystal lattice of a trace element for an element of lower valence.
verb
-
to take prisoner or gain control over
to capture an enemy
to capture a town
-
(in a game or contest) to win control or possession of
to capture a pawn in chess
-
to succeed in representing or describing (something elusive)
the artist captured her likeness
-
physics (of an atom, molecule, ion, or nucleus) to acquire (an additional particle)
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to insert or transfer (data) into a computer
noun
-
the act of taking by force; seizure
-
the person or thing captured; booty
-
physics a process by which an atom, molecule, ion, or nucleus acquires an additional particle
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Also called: piracy. geography the process by which the headwaters of one river are diverted into another through erosion caused by the second river's tributaries
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the act or process of inserting or transferring data into a computer
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
capturesimple
-
capturessimple
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have capturedperfect
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has capturedperfect
-
am capturingprogressive
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are capturingprogressive
-
is capturingprogressive
-
have been capturingperfect progressive
-
has been capturingperfect progressive
Past
-
capturedsimple
-
had capturedperfect
-
was capturingprogressive
-
were capturingprogressive
-
had been capturingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of capture
First recorded in 1535–45; from Middle French, from Latin captūra, equivalent to capt(us) “taken” (past participle of capere “to take”) + -ūra -ure
Explanation
The verb to capture means to grab, trap, or take something that doesn't want to be grabbed, trapped, or taken. Hunters, pirates, and kidnappers all capture the things they want. If you want that tiger, you're going to have to capture him, either by setting a trap or shooting him. Either way, his capture won't be easy. You can also capture a photograph of something — which, while it doesn't mean taking it against its will, is still a kind of taking in which the thing itself is not participating. The pirate captured his hostages, while his hostages captured the scene on their cell-phone video cameras.
Vocabulary lists containing capture
The SAT: Language of the Test, List 1
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Words Every Pirate Should Know
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The New SAT: The Language of the Test
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Traditional car dealerships—squeezed by slowing new- and used-vehicle sales—are aggressively chasing repair work to win back drivers and capture high-margin revenue.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Silva, 29, enters the contest on a 14-fight win streak across different promotions and is the favourite to capture the vacant title after Valentina Shevchenko was forced to vacate the belt last month through injury.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
I wasn’t sure of the right noun to use to capture his feelings: Excitement?
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
As a result, “death certificates likely capture only part of the true disease burden,” he says.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 30, 2026
“To capture the whole war hero, the whole girl. Here she is at work, connecting important calls of the country. Here she is at home, reading and doing her needlework, perhaps by the fireplace.”
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
Like Jones, Ms. Perry captures the sensory experience of death and the feeling of existing in a strange, panicked void.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
Quantum entanglement captures one of the strangest differences between everyday physics and the quantum world.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 29, 2026
In its finest moments, the box set captures the astonishing level of musical development that will energize the remainder of The Beatles’ career, a period of unparalleled pop-cultural ambition and stylistic experimentation.
From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026
He captures their personality through a curiosity lens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
He captures snowflakes, tadpoles, hibernating frogs; he coaxes bread from bakers with none to sell; he regularly appears in the kitchen with fresh milk for the babies.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
In the 1870s, a Pend d’Oreille Indian named Walking Coyote captured a few bison calves from northern Montana.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
When watching the film, the festival sets captured live blend seamlessly with the shots of the crowd, which were captured both live and simulated later in Atlanta.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
The system analyses footage of ripening fruit that can be captured by drones, someone walking up and down a field with a smartphone, or a camera mounted on a farm vehicle.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
NASA's Curiosity rover has captured a striking new view of Mars as it passed a major mission milestone: 5,000 Martian days on the Red Planet.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026
Published in London in 1789, his memoir told of being captured, carried across the ocean to Barbados, and sold to a merchant sea captain.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
The scoreline does a terrible job in capturing what happened.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
Fabled camera maker Leica has revived its fortunes partly by taking control of its distribution from dealers and capturing some of the lucrative secondhand market for its product.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
His forecast relies on Starlink capturing “essentially 100%” of satellite broadband customers in its chosen markets while taking market share from nonfiber broadband subscribers.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
Experts say California has made progress capturing more stormwater, but there is still more it can do.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2026
His eyes catch me off guard, capturing me completely in some kind of net.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
