Capsule: A Small Case for Medicine, Seeds or Astronauts
A capsule is a small sealed container. Pharmacy, botany and spaceflight all use the word, and as an adjective it means compressed into the smallest form.
A capsule is a small container that encloses something completely. The adjective is the interesting one: a capsule summary or a capsule wardrobe means the smallest version that still works, everything unnecessary stripped out.
- A small case holding medicine. *Take one capsule with water.*
- A seed case (botany). *The poppy capsule dries and rattles.*
- A spacecraft compartment. *The capsule splashed down safely.*
- Compressed to essentials (adjective). *A capsule review.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | capsule | A gelatin capsule. |
| Adjective | capsule | A capsule summary. |
| Verb | encapsulate | That encapsulates the problem. |
| Compound | time capsule | A time capsule buried in 1975. |
| Compound | capsule wardrobe | A capsule wardrobe of ten items. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Swallow the capsule whole; do not open it.Standard pharmacy instruction.
- The crew capsule separated from the rocket.Spaceflight sense.
- That one line encapsulates his whole argument.The verb means to capture in the smallest space.
Capsule, tablet and pill
- Capsule — a shell filled with powder or liquid, opens in the gut
- Tablet — compressed powder pressed into a solid disc
- Pill — the loose everyday word covering both
- Caplet — a tablet shaped like a capsule to be easier to swallow
From Latin *capsula*, a small box, a diminutive of *capsa*, a case — the same root that gives English case and cash. Time capsule is a twentieth-century coinage, popularised by a container buried at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
What is a capsule wardrobe?
A small set of clothes chosen to combine with each other, so that a few items cover many occasions.
Can capsules be opened?
Not usually. Many are designed to release contents at a particular point in digestion, so opening them changes how the medicine works.