capitulate
UK/kəˈpɪ.tjʊ.leɪt//kəˈpɪt͡ʃ.(j)ʊ.leɪt/
capitulate verb: to surrender on stipulated terms, end all resistance, give up, go along with or comply. Also the alternative form of capitoulate.
Verb
capitulate (third-person singular simple present capitulates, present participle capitulating, simple past and past participle capitulated)
- To surrender on stipulated terms, end all resistance, give up, go along with or comply.
- He argued and hollered for so long that I finally capitulated just to make him stop.
- The Irish, after holding out a week, capitulated.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIV, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and...
- Synonyms:
- wave the white flag
- Antonyms:
- beat, bring down, convince, chew up, eat someone for breakfast, eat someone's lunch, flog, humble, kick ass, malavogue
- To draw up in chapters, heads or articles; to enumerate, specify.
- The lawes […] which we capitulate at sea […] are not used on lande.1593, Thomas Lodge, Life and Death of William Longbeard
- The places of serpents abode being thus generally capitulated.1608, Edward Topsell, Serpents
- To draw up articles of agreement with; to propose terms, treat, bargain, parley.
- there capitulates with the king […] to take to wife his daughter Mary1661, Peter Heylin, Ecclesia restaurata
- To make conditions, stipulate, agree, formulate, conclude (upon something).
Adjective
UK/kəˈpɪ.tjʊ.lət/US/kəˈpɪt͡ʃ.(j)ʊ.lət/
capitulate (comparative more capitulate, superlative most capitulate)
- Capitulated: agreed upon, convened, settled on, stipulated.
- It was capitulate and convenanted, that […] the river Himera, […]1600, Philemon Holland, A translation of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, XXIV. VI. 512
- Reduced to heads, laid down under a certain number of heads or items.
- Having or forming a capitulum.
- The aggregation of flowers into capitulate inflorescences is a character directly advantageous from the aspect of the biological function of cross-pollination.1912, New Phytologist
Also used as
capitulate is also the alternative form of capitoulate.
capitulate meaning in Arabic, Persian, Thai and Vietnamese
capitulate in Arabic
- surrender; end all resistance; to give up; to go along with or comply
- اِسْتَسْلَمَ istaslama
capitulate in Persian
- surrender; end all resistance; to give up; to go along with or comply
- تسلیم شدن taslim šodan
capitulate in Thai
- surrender; end all resistance; to give up; to go along with or comply
- ยอมแพ้ yɔɔm-pɛ́ɛ
capitulate in Vietnamese
- surrender; end all resistance; to give up; to go along with or comply
- đầu hàng
Examples of capitulate in a sentence
- When captain Kolisi was sin-binned for a high tackle, the Boks could've easily capitulated.
- We cannot capitulate, but must use it to change the world.
- That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.
Synonyms of capitulate
Antonyms
Forms of capitulate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | capitulates |
| present participle | capitulating |
| past participle | capitulated |
| past | capitulated |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more capitulate |
| superlative | most capitulate |
| Noun | |
| plural | capitulates |
Origin of capitulate
The adjective is first attested in 1528, the verb in 1537; borrowed from Medieval Latin capitulātus perfect passive participle of Medieval Latin capitulō (“(originally; of a book, text) to draw up under distinct headings; (from the 15ᵗʰ c.) to bargain, parley, convene”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from capitulum (“heading, chapter, title”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix), diminutive of caput (“head”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap-. Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
Words formed from capitulate
Questions about capitulate
- What does capitulate mean?
- Capitulate means to surrender on stipulated terms, end all resistance, give up, go along with or comply.
- What is capitulate in Arabic?
- Capitulate in Arabic is اِسْتَسْلَمَ (istaslama). See Capitulate meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is capitulate?
- Capitulate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce capitulate?
- Capitulate is pronounced /kəˈpɪ.tjʊ.leɪt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of capitulate?
- The past tense of capitulate is capitulated.
Words near capitulate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: capitulate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-capitulate.ogg, en-au-capitulate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “capitulate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/capitulate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.