My friend Valerie shared a Word Nerd Word she came across while reading: capacious. Then, funny thing, it turned up in the audio book I was listening to, Halt’s Peril, The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 9. Clearly, I was meant to learn this word!
If you like to learn new words, join the Wondrous Words Wednesday meme in which bloggers share new words they’ve learned from their reading.
Valerie originally found capacious in Everything She Thought She Wanted by Elizabeth Buchan:
Charlie was right, but all I could see were the wardrobes of Lucy Thwaite and her trapped sisters waiting to imprison me in their sad smells and capacious misery.
I don’t have the exact quote from Halt’s Peril, but it had something to do with a capacious cloak. Have you guessed the meaning yet?
Capacious \kə-ˈpā-shəs\ adjective from the Latin capac-, capax, capere (also associated with capacity)
- Containing or capable of containing a great deal;
Merriam-Webster.com does a nice job of comparing synonyms to highlight subtle differences in meaning. While ample and spacious are synonyms for capacious, ample implies greater than adequate size or amount, spacious means expansive length and breadth, and capacious suggests being able to hold or contain more than average, like a capacious suitcase.
Word Nerd Workout
Use capacious in a sentence and show me you get the difference between capacious and spacious or ample. My example:
My son’s capacious back pack holds his laptop, three binders, and his lunch box, and, I swear, weighs more than I do.
Thanks for getting nerdy with me today!
Great word! And don’t you love the English language for all its varying shades of meaning?
I love the subtle differences in the meanings of those words. It’s a good thing Heather reserved a capacious room for her wedding since almost everyone she invited came.
My daughter’s backpack was very capacious, when she was in school.
Hi Julia,
I did know this word and I loved the sentence you used as an example. the idea of “sad smells and capacious misery” is intriguing!
All my family would swear that my handbag is very capacious. When we are out, no matter what is needed in a given situation, from a baby wipe to an aspirin, everyone is quick to pipe up – “Ask Yvonne, she is sure to have one”. I’m still not sure if they are impressed at how organised I am, or are secretly laughing at me for being so squirrel like!
Thanks for the usual interesting post 🙂
Yvonne
An excellent use of capacious! Thanks Yvonne.
Ha! We have the same capacious backpacks at our house leading me to fear we shall have capacious back problems in the future 😬
Good word!
Seriously, don’t even get me started on backpacks~ they are WAY too heavy for young kids! Hmm, a sentence: Our capacious pull-out couch is the secret holder of a bed, crumbs, fallen hair elastics, coins, and miscellaneous items stashed between the cushions by my secretive pirate of a 3-year-old.