English

Alternative forms

• capitalization (North American and Oxford British spelling)

Noun

capitalisation ‎(plural capitalisations) (non-Oxford British spelling)

1. The act or process of capitalising.
   1. Choice of case (when writing a word); the act or process of writing a word in a particular case, such as ALL CAPS, CamelCase, or all lowercase.

      English and French have different rules for the capitalisation of the names of the days of the week.

      1. (in particular) The act or process of writing (something: either an entire word or text, or just the initial letter(s) thereof) in capital letters.

         The capitalisation of all nouns is a distinctive feature of German.

   2. The act or process of seizing (an opportunity) and profiting or obtaining an advantage (from it).
      • 1998, Phillip Brian Harper, Are We Not Men?, page 75:

        [...] apparently indicating the degree to which his identification with black music predicates his capitalization on it [...]

2. The state of being capitalised.
   1. The state of having a particular case, such as ALL CAPS or all lowercase.

      His capitalisation was erratic: sometimes he wrote "British", sometimes "british", sometimes "briTish"...

3. The total value of all outstanding shares for a publicly-traded company
   • 1907, Jack London, The Iron Heel:

     I doubt if one of them was interested in any business the total capitalization of which exceeded a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

Translations

French

Etymology

capitaliser +‎ -ation

Noun

capitalisation f ‎(plural capitalisations)

1. capitalisation