capable

英文詞源

capable

capable: [16] In common with a wide range of other English words, from capture to recuperate, capable comes from Latin capere ‘take’, a relative of English heave. An adjective derived from the verb was Latin capāx ‘able to hold much’, from which English gets capacious [17] and capacity [15]. From its stem capāci- was formed the late Latin adjective capābilis, also originally ‘able to contain things’.

This meaning still survived when the word passed, via French capable, into English (‘They are almost capable of a bushel of wheat’, Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Mind 1601), but by the end of the 18th century it had died out, having passed into the current ‘able to, susceptible of’.
=> capacious, capacity, capture, chase, heave, recuperate

capable (adj.)

1560s, from Middle French capable or directly from Late Latin capabilis "receptive; able to grasp or hold," used by theologians, from Latin capax "able to hold much, broad, wide, roomy;" also "receptive, fit for;" adjectival form of capere "to grasp, lay hold, take, catch; undertake; take in, hold; be large enough for; comprehend," from PIE *kap- "to grasp" (cognates: Sanskrit kapati "two handfuls;" Greek kaptein "to swallow, gulp down;" Lettish kampiu "seize;" Old Irish cacht "servant-girl," literally "captive;" Welsh caeth "captive, slave;" Gothic haban "have, hold;" Old English h?ft "handle," habban "to have, hold," Modern English have). Related: Capably.