capitol
Pluralcapitols
- 1The meeting place of a legislature, whether a single building or a complex of several.
Lawmakers returned to the capitol in January for a special session on the budget.
Security was tightened at state capitols across the country before the vote.
Similarstatehouse
Note
A word of American usage, at home in the phrase state capitol. It sits a single letter away from capital, and the two often stand side by side: the capitol is the building where lawmakers meet, the capital is the city around it. The -ol spelling is a reminder of the Roman citadel the word was named after.
- 2A citadel or complex of buildings similar to the Roman Capitol, especially a Roman or Italian citadel with temples to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.
Excavations at the colony uncovered a capitol whose three shrines honored Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.
Like Rome itself, the settlement built a capitol to guard its people and house its gods.
Note
The sense nearest the word's roots: Latin Capitolium named the Capitoline Hill and its temples, built on caput, "head", and it was already applied to any citadel like it. Historians of Rome and Italy use it for a town's sacred and defensive high point, where the shrines of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva stood together.
- 3Alternative form of capitoul.
As a capitol of Toulouse, he sat among the city's chief magistrates.
The portrait in the town hall shows a capitol in the robes of his office.
Note
Here the word names people, not a place: a historical spelling of capitoul, the title of the chief magistrates who once governed Toulouse. Only the context separates it from the lawmakers' building, since a capitol of Toulouse is an officeholder. Capitoul is the usual form, and the safer one when writing about the city's history.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English Capitolie, via Anglo-Norman capitolie and Old French capitoile, from Latin Capitōlium ("the Capitoline Hill and its temples; any similar citadel"), built on the stem of caput ("head") with noun-forming suffixes. The sense of a French magistrate came via French capitoul, from Capitole, the town hall of Toulouse.