different between chief vs capital

English

Etymology

From Middle English chef, borrowed from Old French chief (“leader”), from Vulgar Latin capus (from which also captain, chieftain), from Latin caput (“head”) (English cap (“head covering”)), from Proto-Indo-European *kauput- (English head).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?i?f/
• Rhymes: -i?f

Noun

chief (plural chiefs)

2. A leader or head of a group of people, organisation, etc. [from 13th c.]
   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 4:

     My father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was a chief by both blood and custom.

   All firefighters report to the fire chief.

3. (heraldry) The top part of a shield or escutcheon; more specifically, an ordinary consisting of the upper part of the field cut off by a horizontal line, generally occupying the top third. [from 15th c.]
   • 1889, Charles Norton Elvin, A Dictionary of Heraldry:

     When the Chief is Charged with any figure, in blazon it is said to be "On a Chief".

4. The principal part or top of anything.
5. An informal term of address, sometimes ironic.

   Hey, chief.

Synonyms

• chieftain
• chiefess (female chief)
• See also Thesaurus:boss

Derived terms

Pages starting with “chief”.

Related terms

• captain
• chef
• chieftain

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (ch?fu)
• ? Swahili: chifu

Translations

Adjective

chief (comparative chiefer or more chief, superlative chiefest or most chief)

1. Primary; principal.
2. (Scotland) Intimate, friendly.
   • 2006, James Robertson: The Testament of Gideon Mack, p 324:

     'You’re doing it because she was your friend, not because she was a parishioner, and certainly not because of the Declaratory Articles,' Macmurray said, pushing himself forward on his seat. 'Everybody knows how chief you and she were. It was an unfitting relationship for a minister while she was alive, and it is equally unfitting for you to do her a favour like this now she's dead.'

Translations

Verb

chief (third-person singular simple present chiefs, present participle chiefing, simple past and past participle chiefed)

1. (US, slang) To smoke cannabis.
   • 2012, Marquis "Cream" Cureton, When the Smoke Clears (page 268)

     He chiefed on the bud like a pro, taking long deep hits and holding it within until he had inhaled as much of the weed smoke as he could.

See also

• chef

Anagrams

• cheif, fiche, fiché

Middle English

Noun

chief

1. Alternative form of chef

Adjective

chief

1. Alternative form of chef

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French chief.

Noun

chief m (plural chiefs)

1. head

Descendants

• French: chef (see there for further descendants)

Old French

Alternative forms

• cap (La Vie de Saint Léger, circa 980)
• chef, cief

Etymology

First known attestation 881 in The Sequence of Saint Eulalia. From Vulgar Latin capus, from Latin caput.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?je?f/

Noun

chief m (oblique plural chiés, nominative singular chiés, nominative plural chief)

1. (anatomy) head
   • circa 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:

     Le chief li desarme et la face.

     He exposed his head and his face.

2. leader, chief
3. front (foremost side of something)

Descendants

• Middle French: chief
  • French: chef (see there for further descendants)
• Norman: chef
• ? Middle English: chef
  • English: chief
  • Scots: chief
• ? Old Spanish: xefe
  • Spanish: jefe, gefe
    • ? English: jefe
    • ? Cebuano: hepe
  • ? Asturian: xefe
  • ? Galician: xefe
  • ? Portuguese: chefe

English

Alternative forms

• capitall (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English capital, borrowed from Latin capit?lis (“of the head”) (in sense “head of cattle”), from caput (“head”) (English cap). Use in trade and finance originated in Medieval economies when a common but expensive transaction involved trading heads of cattle.

Compare chattel and kith and kine (“all one’s possessions”), which also use “cow” to mean “property”.

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?kæ.p?.t?l/
• Homophone: capitol

Noun

capital (countable and uncountable, plural capitals)

1. (uncountable, economics) Already-produced durable goods available for use as a factor of production, such as steam shovels (equipment) and office buildings (structures).
2. (uncountable, business, finance, insurance) Money and wealth. The means to acquire goods and services, especially in a non-barter system.

3. (countable) A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.

4. (countable) The most important city in the field specified.
   • 2010 September, Charlie Brennan, "Active Athletes", St. Louis magazine, ISSN 1090-5723, volume 16, issue 9, page 83:

     Hollywood is the film capital, New York the theater capital, Las Vegas the gambling capital.

5. (countable) An uppercase letter.
6. (countable, architecture) The uppermost part of a column.
7. (uncountable) Knowledge; awareness; proficiency.

8. (countable, by extension) The chief or most important thing.

Usage notes

The homophone capitol refers only to a building, usually one that houses the legislative branch of a government, and often one located in a capital city.

Synonyms

• (An uppercase letter): caps (in the plural), majuscule

Antonyms

• (An uppercase letter): minuscule

Translations

Adjective

capital (not comparable)

1. Of prime importance.
   • 1708, Francis Atterbury, Fourteen Sermons Preach'd on Several Occasions : Preface

     a capital article in religion
2. Chief, in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation.

3. (comparable, Britain, dated) Excellent.

4. Involving punishment by death.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 517:

     Some 1,600 priests were deported, for example, while the total number of capital victims of the military commissions down to 1799 was only around 150.

5. Uppercase.

   Antonym: lower-case

   1. used to emphasise greatness or absoluteness
6. Of or relating to the head.

Translations

Derived terms

Related terms

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “capital”, in Online Etymology Dictionary
• capital at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• palatic, placita

Asturian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin capit?lis.

Adjective

capital (epicene, plural capitales)

1. capital

Noun

capital f (plural capitales)

1. capital city (city designated as seat of government)

capital m (plural capitales)

1. capital (money)

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin capit?lis.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /k?.pi?tal/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /ka.pi?tal/

Adjective

capital (feminine capitala, masculine plural capitals, feminine plural capitales)

1. capital

Derived terms

• pena capital
• set pecats capitals

Noun

capital f (plural capitals)

1. capital (city)

Noun

capital m (plural capitals)

1. capital (finance)

Derived terms

• capitalisme
• capitalista
• capitalitzar

Further reading

• “capital” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin capit?lis. Doublet of cheptel.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.pi.tal/

Noun

capital m (plural capitaux)

1. capital (money and wealth)

Adjective

capital (feminine singular capitale, masculine plural capitaux, feminine plural capitales)

1. capital (important)

   La peine capitale est abolie en France depuis les années 1980.

Derived terms

Related terms

• capitale
• capitaliser
• capitalisme

Further reading

• “capital” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• plaçait

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin capit?lis. Doublet of cabedal and caudal.

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /k?.pi.?ta?/
• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ka.pi.?taw/, [k?.p?.?t?ä??]

Noun

capital f (plural capitais)

2. (geopolitics) capital; capital city (place where the seat of a government is located)
4. (figuratively) capital (the most important place associated with something)

Noun

capital m (plural capitais)

2. (finances) capital (money that can be used to acquire goods and services)
4. (figuratively) anything of prime importance

Derived terms

• capitalismo
• capitalista

Adjective

capital m or f (plural capitais, comparable)

2. capital (of prime importance)
4. (law) capital (involving punishment by death)
6. (rare, anatomy) capital (relating to the head)

Related terms

• cabeça
• cabedal
• cabo
• caput
• caudal
• per capita

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French capital, Latin capit?lis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.pi?tal/

Noun

capital n (plural capitaluri)

1. (economics, business) capital

Declension

Adjective

capital m or n (feminine singular capital?, masculine plural capitali, feminine and neuter plural capitale)

1. capital, important

Declension

Romansch

Alternative forms

• (Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader) chapital
• (Puter) chapitêl

Etymology

From Latin capit?lis, from caput (“head”).

Noun

capital m (plural capitals)

1. (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) capital

Related terms

• capitala, tgapitala

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin capit?lis. Doublet of caudal.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kapi?tal/, [ka.pi?t?al]
• Rhymes: -al

Adjective

capital (plural capitales)

1. capital (important)

Derived terms

• pecado capital

Noun

capital m (plural capitales)

1. capital (finance)

Derived terms

Noun

capital f (plural capitales)

1. capital (city)

Further reading

• “capital” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.