Capitalized

Capitalized is the past participle and adjective form of the verb capitalize. It has several related meanings across typography, finance, and computing.

In typography, to capitalize a word means to render its letters as uppercase. Words may be capitalized for proper nouns, at the start of sentences, or according to style rules such as title case. Rules vary by language and style guide, and capitalization is distinct from mere emphasis.

In American English, “capitalized” is the common spelling; in British English, the variant “capitalised” is used. Both forms refer to the same concept.

In accounting and finance, to capitalize an expenditure means to record it as a long-term asset rather than an expense; a “capitalized” cost is amortized or depreciated over time. The term also appears in the broader concept of capitalization, as in market capitalization or book capitalization, describing the size of a company’s equity and debt.

In computing and software, a function or method may capitalize a string by converting the first letter to uppercase (and often adjusting the remaining characters).

Examples: “New York” is capitalized as a proper noun; “apple” becomes “Apple” when capitalized; a company may be capitalized with new equity.

See also: capitalization, capitalization (linguistics), title case, uppercase, business capitalization.