capitalization

American  

[kap-i-tl-uh-zey-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

Etymology

Origin of capitalization

First recorded in 1855–60; capitalize + -ation

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

Microsoft posted the largest one-day gain in market capitalization by any company, ever, after a quarter proving that it could still show investors the money.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

During the pandemic, it traded as if mRNA would transform medicine overnight, with its market capitalization peaking near $200 billion.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

And with a capitalization of $5.26 trillion, Nvidia is the market’s biggest company, carrying a 7.6% weighting in the S&P 500.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026

The remaining 20% would be the short sale of a basket of six neocloud companies, also weighted by market capitalization.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026

“Yeah. I’m a big believer in random capitalization. The rules of capitalization are so unfair to words in the middle.”

From "Paper Towns" by John Green

The S&P 500 is weighted by companies’ market capitalizations, which means the index is nearly 40% concentrated in its largest 10 components.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026

The electric letters glow white against a black wall, their message spelled out with odd capitalizations, in Ms. Emin’s distinctive, sloping script.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

To be included in the baskets, the stocks must have market capitalizations of more than $1 billion and trade with liquid U.S. listings.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 17, 2026

Because the Dow is a price-weighted index—meaning stock prices rather than market capitalizations determine the weighting of each company—few funds choose to replicate its composition.

From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 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

Related Words

• funding