capitalization

American  

[kap-i-tl-uh-zay-shuhn] / ˌkæp ɪ tl əˈzeɪ ʃən /

noun

• capitalizations
  plural

1. the act or process of capitalizing.

2. the authorized or outstanding stocks and bonds of a corporation.

3. Accounting.

   1. the total investment of the owner or owners in a business enterprise.

   2. the total corporate liability.

   3. the total arrived at after addition of liabilities.

4. conversion into stocks or bonds.

5. the act of computing the present value of future periodical payments.

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capitalization British  

/ ˌkæpɪtəlaɪˈzeɪʃən /

noun

1. 1. the act of capitalizing

   2. the sum so derived

2. accounting the par value of the total share capital issued by a company, including the loan capital and sometimes reserves

3. the act of estimating the present value of future payments, earnings, etc

4. the act of writing or printing in capital letters

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Usage

What does capitalization mean? Capitalization is the act of using capital letters. A capital letter (A, B, C, etc.) is a letter of the alphabet that is bigger than the lower case version (e.g., c, o, s) and sometimes styled differently as well (e.g., a, b, q). In English, we use capital letters for several reasons. The most common reasons we use capitalization in English are to begin a sentence and to indicate a proper noun. We capitalize the first letter of the first word of a sentence to show that this is the beginning of the sentence, as in Who took my wallet?This includes complete sentences that are used in quotations, as in Mom said, “We are going to the mall.”We also use capitalization for proper nouns, that is a particular person, place, or thing, like James, New York, or the Library of Congress. Sometimes, though, companies name themselves or their products without any capitalization or with capitalization in the middle of the word (sometimes called camel case), as in adidas, eBay, and WikiAnswers. The pronoun I is always capitalized, no matter where it is used in a sentence, as in He went to the park, but I stayed home.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• capitalizations
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of capitalization

First recorded in 1855–60; capitalize + -ation

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Explanation

Capitalization means using capital, or upper-case, letters. Capitalization of place names, family names, and days of the week are all standard in English. Using capital letters at the start of a sentence and capitalizing all the letters in a word for emphasis are both examples of capitalization. Capitalization also means the act of gaining an advantage from some opportunity: "Her capitalization of the voters' frustration made it much easier for her to win the election." The earliest meaning, however, was purely financial, from the sense of capitalize that means "convert financial assets to capital."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

capitalization capitalizations

That’s the equivalent of about 30% of GM’s overall market capitalization, Narayan said.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026

The company has lost as much market value in a year as Walt Disney’s entire market capitalization all while earnings expectations for this year have been stable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026

An additional vulnerability Panigirtzoglou perceives is the assets under management of leveraged memory ETFs, relative to the market capitalization of the underlying stocks.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 15, 2026

In fact, shares of the iPhone maker reached a record high, rising 0.5% and leading the company to close above a $5 trillion market capitalization for the first time, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026

“A bank with a market capitalization of one billion dollars might have one trillion dollars’ worth of credit default swaps outstanding.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Meanwhile, their total market capitalizations range from around $55 billion for Marubeni to about $115 billion for Mitsubishi, according to FactSet.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026

The market capitalizations of Best Buy, Lululemon and Wayfair are all below that threshold.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

The Keeley Small Cap Fund typically buys shares of companies with market capitalizations ranging from $100 million to $2.5 billion at initial investment.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026

Alphabet, the parent of Google, has one of the largest market capitalizations in the world.

From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026

I'm agin' these big capitalizations, and that's just why I asked you for the information.

From Loaded Dice by Ellery H. Clark

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