Word.ws English Dictionary

capstone

/ˈkæpˌstoʊn/

capstone noun: any of the stones making up the top layer of a wall; a coping stone.

Noun

capstone (plural capstones)

  1. Any of the stones making up the top layer of a wall; a coping stone.
  2. (figuratively) A crowning achievement, culmination or finishing touch.
    • “You see, I’ve never had a girl friend,” I added, by way of topping the obelisk of silliness with the capstone of fatuity.1904, Guy Wetmore Carryl, Far from the Maddening Girls, chapter 5
    • Success of the Apollo program has been the capstone to a series of significant accomplishments for the United States in space in a broad spectrum of manned and unmanned exploration missions and in the application of space techniques for the benefit of man.1969, The Post-Apollo Space Program: Directions for the Future, NASA

Verb

capstone (third-person singular simple present capstones, present participle capstoning, simple past and past participle capstoned)

  1. (transitive) To complete as a crowning achievement; to top off.
    • Capstoning a decade's worth of linked short stories, The Quiet War (2008) was a vivid and tense novel about a solar system sliding into conflict.2012, Keith Brooke, Strange Divisions and Alien Territories, page 23
  2. (US, informal, transitive) To train in the Capstone Military Leadership Program.
    • “Capstoned” units are now able to train and plan in peacetime with the command with which they will fight in wartime.1981, Army Reserve Magazine, volumes 27-28, page 24

Synonyms of capstone

Forms of capstone

Noun
pluralcapstones
Verb
third-person singular presentcapstones
present participlecapstoning
past participlecapstoned
pastcapstoned

Plural of capstone: capstones

Origin of capstone

From Middle English capston; equivalent to cap + stone.

Words formed from capstone

Phrases with capstone

Questions about capstone

What does capstone mean?
Capstone means any of the stones making up the top layer of a wall; a coping stone.
What part of speech is capstone?
Capstone can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce capstone?
Capstone is pronounced /ˈkæpˌstoʊn/ (US).
What is the plural of capstone?
The plural of capstone is capstones.

Words near capstone in the dictionary

  1. capstans
  2. capstern
  3. capsterns
  4. Capstick
  5. Capsticks
  6. capstone
  7. capstone project
  8. capstone projects
  9. capstoned
  10. capstones
  11. capstoning

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: capstone (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-capstone.wav.

Cite this entry: “capstone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/capstone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.