capitalize
Americanverb (used with object)
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capitalizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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capitalized,
past participle, past
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capitalizing
present participle
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to write or print in capital letters letters or with an initial capital letter.
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to authorize a certain amount of stocks and bonds in the corporate charter of.
to capitalize a corporation.
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to issue stock as a dividend, thereby capitalizing retained earnings, or as settlement of an unpaid arrearage of preferred dividends.
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Accounting. to set up (expenditures) as business assets in the books of account instead of treating as expense.
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to supply with capital.
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to estimate the value of (a stock or an enterprise).
verb (used without object)
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capitalizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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capitalized,
past participle, past
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capitalizing
present participle
verb
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to take advantage (of); profit (by)
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to write or print (text) in capital letters or with the first letter of (a word or words) in capital letters
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to convert (debt or retained earnings) into capital stock
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to authorize (a business enterprise) to issue a specified amount of capital stock
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to provide with capital
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accounting to treat (expenditures) as assets
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to estimate the present value of (a periodical income)
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to compute the present value of (a business) from actual or potential earnings
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Usage
What does capitalize mean? To capitalize a word is to make its first letter a capital letter—an uppercase letter. For example, to capitalize the word polish (which is here spelled with a lowercase p), you would write it as Polish. A word whose first letter is a capital can be described as capitalized. The state of being capitalized (or the process of capitalizing) is called capitalization, as in Please check your paper for proper punctuation and capitalization. In English, words are capitalized for a few different reasons. It is considered a standard rule of English to capitalize proper nouns (which are nouns that refer to specific people, places, or things—meaning one’s that have specific names), such as Jess, Mexico, and Nintendo. Capitalizing a word can change the way the reader interprets its meaning, as in the case of polish (a verb meaning to make something shinier) and Polish (an adjective describing someone from Poland) or apple (the fruit) and Apple (the company). We also capitalize the first word in a sentence. Sometimes, we capitalize the first letter of each word in a title, as in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Example: A lot of people don’t bother to capitalize words when sending text messages. Capitalize also has several other meanings. To capitalize on something means to take advantage of it. You can capitalize on an opportunity or a situation by doing something to benefit from it in some way. Example: The company is capitalizing on the publicity by releasing new merchandise. In the context of finance, capitalize is used in more specific and technical ways. The most straightforward sense of the word in this context means to supply with capital (money). Example: Most startups are capitalized by friends and family members before they’re able to secure significant funding.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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capitalizesimple
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capitalizessimple
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have capitalizedperfect
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has capitalizedperfect
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am capitalizingprogressive
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are capitalizingprogressive
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is capitalizingprogressive
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have been capitalizingperfect progressive
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has been capitalizingperfect progressive
Past
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capitalizedsimple
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had capitalizedperfect
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was capitalizingprogressive
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were capitalizingprogressive
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had been capitalizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of capitalize
Explanation
To capitalize is to put something in capital letters, particularly the first letters, Like This. To capitalize also means to take advantage of a situation. The first word of every sentence is capitalized, and to capitalize is to write in capital (or upper-case) letters. To capitalize also means to take advantage of an opportunity. Graduates try to capitalize on their degrees by getting well-paying jobs. A football team tries to capitalize on the other team’s mistakes, such as making a touchdown after an interception. It might help you to remember that capitalizing is a good thing if you know capital is also another word for money.
Vocabulary lists containing capitalize
Language and Grammar - Introductory
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NAEP Test Words
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Body Language: Capit, Capt ("Head")
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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:
And Beijing has been quick to capitalize on the vacuum.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Today, data centers and a handful of AI-related industries are driving the manufacturing sector, and companies in that sector are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand their lineups to capitalize on the opportunity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Consumers likely brought forward their spending to capitalize on online sales events in June, Long said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
Rosenblatt Securities analyst John McPeake wrote that with artificial-intelligence computing power being so scarce, he expected that CoreWeave would be able to capitalize.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
On a personal level, my relations with Chief Buthelezi were close and respectful, and I hoped to capitalize on that.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
Whether or not UConn now capitalizes on its comeback with a championship, the upset has already sent shock waves through college basketball.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
Borges expects Azure to drive revenue estimates higher in 2026 as it capitalizes on a “fungible” capacity, meaning that its data centers can be easily utilized for a variety of different workloads and customers.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 12, 2026
The one-minute spot cleverly capitalizes on the zeitgeist’s knowledge of Paltrow’s relationship to Martin and uses that joke to spin the conversation in another direction, highlighting the Astronomer product’s actual function.
From Salon ● Dec. 22, 2025
The move also capitalizes on the market opportunity presented by domestic migration.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 10, 2025
Property, whether it consumes or hoards or capitalizes, is productive of INUTILITY,—the cause of sterility and death.
From What is Property? by P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph) Proudhon
The shares have jumped more than 156% so far in 2026 as the company has capitalized on the AI boom.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
The Spanish team capitalized on its opponent’s defensive misalignments, found depth down the wings and consistently exposed the Austrians’ defensive weaknesses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
Those stock dips then crossed the Pacific and fueled a stateside panic, causing even highly capitalized players like SpaceX and Oracle to plunge in value.
From Slate ● Jul. 2, 2026
One password-protected website has the creatively misspelled URL poiymarket.com, which is indistinguishable from polymarket.com when the “i” is capitalized.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026
Intercept the Omnictionary poster, who according to the Randomly capitalized Evidence is 5.
From "Paper Towns" by John Green
Toyota, meanwhile, is pumping out a string of new models, capitalizing on surging demand for hybrids.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
“Hichilema intends to position Zambia as a leading producer of one of the world’s key critical minerals, capitalizing on increasing industrial demand,” said Edward Bach, Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a U.K. risk-intelligence firm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Many of the offers centered on capitalizing on their family names and pigeonholing them into commercial pop or hip-hop, which they tried and ultimately disliked.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
“The Russians are very good at capitalizing on people’s rage. And I was very angry.”
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2026
And capitalizing on diversity is perhaps even more important when it comes to the characters of the oarsmen.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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.
