per capita
[per kap-i-tuh]
- by or for each individual person: income per capita.
- Law. noting or pertaining to a method of dividing an estate by which all those equally related to the decedent take equal shares individually without regard to the number of lines of descent.Compare per stirpes.
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Origin of per capita
1675–85; < Latin: literally, by heads
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for per capita
Contemporary Examples
By the early 1980s, the UK's per-capita GDP was lower than that of Italy.
But by 1920, American per-capita GDP exceeded that of the British Isles.
To be sure, Canada is a rich country, on a per-capita basis, and its population tends to be clustered along the border.
Behold the rate of per-capita cost growth in the OECD from 2004-2010.
The data reflect deaths by suicide for 2007, ranked by per-capita rate.
per capita
- of or for each person
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Word Origin
Latin, literally: according to heads
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
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Word Origin and History for per capita
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
per capita
[(puhr kap-i-tuh)]
A Latin phrase literally meaning “by heads,” and translated as “for each person.” It is a common unit for expressing data in statistics. A country's per capita personal income, for example, is the average personal income per person.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.