capitalize
/ˈkapɪt(ə)lʌɪz
/(also capitalise)
verb
1 [no object] (capitalize on) Take the chance to gain advantage from: an attempt by the opposition to capitalize on the government’s embarrassment...
- While capitalizing on nature's advantages, Resurgence Theatre will also address some of her disadvantages.
- With Mars looming large in the morning sky, astronomers are capitalizing on a great chance to study our neighbouring planet.
- Jon intends to change all that by capitalizing on the momentum gained by groups such as MoveOn.
Synonyms
take advantage of, profit from, turn to account, make capital out of, make the most of, exploit, benefit from, put to advantage;
maximize;
strike while the iron is hot, make hay while the sun shines
informal cash in on
2 [with object] Provide (a company) with capital: (as adjective capitalized) a highly capitalized industry...
- Vanguarde was considered the most highly capitalized black company in U.S. history, gaining roughly $60 million over four years.
- With a billion shares in issue the company is capitalised at over £3b on today's share price of 305p.
- And, we certainly do not expect this thinly capitalized industry to provide much protection to the bloated GSEs when the downturn commences in the U.S. housing market.
Synonyms
finance, fund, underwrite, provide capital for, back, sponsor;
North American bankroll
North American informal stake
3 [with object] Realize (the present value of an income); convert into capital: people should have the right to capitalize part of the value of these benefits...
- In this connection ‘fund’, I take it, ordinarily means money set aside and invested, the surplus income therefrom being capitalised.
- The reason for investing in such funds was to provide for a regular tax-free income that can be capitalised or used as well as the promise that their capital value remains intact.
- To capitalize the income stream without considering the repayment of corporate debt, but then to assume that repayment when doing a residual value of the company, artificially increased the value of the income stream.
3.1Reckon (the value of an asset) by setting future benefits against the cost of maintenance: a trader will want to capitalize repairs expenditure...
- Holt Value Associates began capitalizing research and development costs and treating them as a depreciating asset in its cash flow ROI analyses earlier this year.
- During the pre-acquisition stage, only those costs that are directly identifiable to the asset are capitalized.
- If the costs are to be capitalized, then the next issue is to determine the asset's determinable useful life, if any.
4 [with object] Write or print (a word or letter) in capital letters: the letter M, either capitalized or in lower case, is the abbreviation for mili-...
- I also learned how to correctly identify the beginning of a sentence, target the first word, and capitalize the first letter (make the letter bigger than the rest).
- Incidentally, the lettering where you capitalise the first letter of almost all the words can be called ‘title case’.
- Changing the shape very slightly - and silently - by capitalizing the initial letter, we turn it into something like God or Reason.
4.1Begin (a word) with a capital letter.At that time, there was a typesetter at the American Atheist Center who refused to capitalize any religious words, and no religious words were capitalized in the book....
- The word pandemonium itself means a wild uproar, but as the word is capitalized, its meaning is instead directed at the region associated in Milton's Paradise Lost, where Pandemonium is the capital of Hell.
- Recall that control words were always capitalized correctly regardless of whether they were embedded in normal or in distorted text passages.