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Allin

capsule

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈkæpsjuːl//
  • United States//ˈkæps(ə)l//
  • Australia//ˈkæpʃuːl//

A membranous envelope.

noun

  1. 1

    A membranous envelope.

  2. 2

    A type of simple, dehiscent, dry fruit (seed-case) produced by many species of flowering plants, such as poppy, lily, orchid, willow and cotton.

  3. 3

    A sporangium, especially in bryophytes.

    The epidermal cells of the capsule wall of Jubulopsis, with nodose "trigones" at the angles, are very reminiscent of what one finds in Frullania spp.

  4. 4

    A tough, fibrous layer surrounding an organ such as the kidney or liver

  5. 5

    A membrane that surrounds the eyeball

  6. 6

    A detachable part of a rocket or spacecraft (usually in the nose) containing the crew's living space.

  7. 7

    A small container containing a dose of medicine.

  8. 8

    figurativein a brief, condensed or compact form

    If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred.

  9. 9

    The covering — formerly lead or tin, now often plastic — over the cork at the top of the wine bottle.

  10. 10

    datedA small clay saucer for roasting or melting samples of ores, etc.; a scorifier.

  11. 11

    A small, shallow evaporating dish, usually of porcelain.

  12. 12

    A small cup or shell, often of metal, for a percussion cap, cartridge, etc.

  13. 13

    One of the very small rooms for guests in a capsule hotel.

Etymology

Borrowed from French capsule, from Latin capsula, diminutive of capsa (“box”).

verb

  1. 1

    To form (medicine, etc.) into capsules.

  2. 2

    To encapsulate or summarize.

Forms

plural
capsules
past tense
capsuled
past participle
capsuled
present participle
capsuling
third person singular
capsules
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).