caput

Learned borrowing from Latin caput (“the head”). Doublet of cape, chef, and chief, and distantly of head.

• IPA^(key): /kəpˈʊt/, /ˈkæp.ət/

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caput (plural caputs or capita)

1. (anatomy) The head.
2. (anatomy) A knob-like protuberance or capitulum.
3. The top or superior part of a thing.
4. (UK) The council or ruling body of the University of Cambridge prior to the constitution of 1856.
   • 1823, Elia [pseudonym; Charles Lamb], “Oxford in the Vacation”, in Elia. Essays which have Appeared under that Signature in The London Magazine, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 22:

     D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two Universities; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters, relative to C⁠⸺, by which he hopes to settle some disputed points—particularly that long controversy between them as to priority of foundation. The ardor with which he engages in these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the encouragement it deserved, either here, or at C⁠⸺. Your caputs, and heads of colleges, care less than any body else about these questions.

5. (medicine, colloquial) Ellipsis of caput succedaneum.

• capite
• caput mortuum

• act up

Borrowed from German kaputt.

caput m (uncountable)

1. kaput

• fer caput

• (part or division of a writing): cap., c.
• capud

From Proto-Italic *kaput, from Proto-Indo-European *káput-. Cognates include German Haupt and English head.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈka.put/, [ˈkäpʊt̪]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈka.put/, [ˈkäːput̪]

caput n (genitive capitis); third declension

1. The head. (of human and animals)
   1. (poetic) The head as the seat of the understanding.
2. (transferred sense) (of inanimate things):
   1. (in general) The head, top, summit, point, end, extremity (beginning or end).
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.354–355:

     “[...] mē puer Ascanius capitisque iniūria cārī,
     quem rēgnō Hesperiae fraudō et fātālibus arvīs.”

     “[I consider] my son Ascanius, and my wronging of his dear life’s summit, [how] I deprive him of his Hesperian kingdom and destined fields.”
     (Ascanius will become a legendary king and ancestor of the gens Julia.)

   1. The origin, source, spring (head). (of rivers)
      • 23 BCE – 13 BCE, Horace, Odes 1.1:

        nunc ad aquae lēne caput sacrae.

   2. (rare, of rivers) The mouth, embouchure.
   3. (botany, sometimes) The root.
   4. Vine branches.
   5. (poetic) (of trees) The summit, top.

   caput rerum ― the main point of the matter

3. (literature) A man, person, or animal.
4. (figurative):
   1. Physical life.
   2. Civil or political life.
   3. (very frequently) The first or chief person or thing; the head, leader, chief, guide, capital.
      • 27 BCE – 25 BCE, Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita 1.16:

        ut mea Rōma caput orbis terrārum sit

      • 27 BCE – 25 BCE, Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita 8.4:

        Rōmam caput Latiō esse

   capita rerum ― the heads of the state affairs

5. (writing) A division, section, paragraph, chapter.

   Synonym: capitulum

6. (New Latin, anatomy) A headlike protuberance on an organ or body part, usually bone.

   caput ulnae ― head of the ulna

7. (New Latin, pathology) A disease; a severe swelling of the soft tissues of a newborn's scalp that develops as the baby travels through the birth canal.

Caput can be used with either a genitive or a dative in the sense of a capital city.

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

• From *capucla, feminine of *capuclum, for *caputulum:
  • Italian: capocchia
• From *caputia:
  • Italian: capoccia

• Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911) “caput”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 130

• “caput”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “caput”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• caput in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• caput in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to uncover one's head: caput aperire (opp. operire)
    
  • to bow one's head: caput demittere
    
  • to cut off a man's head: caput praecīdere
    
  • to strike one's head against the wall: caput parieti impingere
    
  • source, origin: fons et caput (vid. sect. III., note caput...)
    
  • a man's life is at stake, is in very great danger: salus, caput, vita alicuius agitur, periclitatur, in discrimine est or versatur
    
  • the main dish: caput cenae (Fin. 2. 8. 25)
    
  • to put our heads together: capita conferre (Liv. 2. 45)
    
  • a person's life is in jeopardy: caput alicuius agitur (vid. sect. V. 8)
    
  • the main point: quod caput est
    
  • (ambiguous) bare-headed: capite aperto (opp. operto)
    
  • (ambiguous) with head covered: capite obvoluto
    
  • (ambiguous) to recklessly hazard one's life: in periculum capitis, in discrimen vitae se inferre
    
  • (ambiguous) to subtract something from the capital: de capite deducere (vid. sect. XII. 1, note Notice too...) aliquid
    
  • (ambiguous) to condemn some one to death: capitis or capite damnare aliquem
    
  • (ambiguous) to repeal a death-sentence passed on a person: capitis absolvere aliquem
    
  • (ambiguous) Solon made it a capital offence to..: Solo capite sanxit, si quis... (Att. 10. 1)
    
  • (ambiguous) to suffer capital punishment: supplicio (capitis) affici
    
• “caput”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• caput in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎, pre-publication website, 2005-2016
• “caput”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• Dizionario Latino, Olivetti
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “head”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Learned borrowing from Latin caput (“the head”). Doublet of cabo, chefe, and chef.

caput m (plural capita)(Brazil, higher register)

1. that which is located above
2. (law) a title or header of a legal article containing its central idea