Adjective: capacious
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more capacious |
| Superlative | most capacious |
Sample Sentences
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I turnd my thoughts, and with capacious mind / Conſiderd all things viſible in Heav'n [1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC:]
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‘There’s rummer things than women in this world though, mind you,’ said the man with the black eye, slowly filling a large Dutch pipe, with a most capacious bowl. [1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “Comprising a brief Description of the Company at the Peacock assembled; and a Tale told by a Bagman”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:]
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The Malabar, that huge sea monster, in whose capacious belly so many human creatures lived and suffered, had dwindled to a walnut-shell, and yet beside her bulk how infinitely small had their own frail cockboat appeared as they shot out from under her towering stern! [1874, Marcus Clarke, chapter V, in For the Term of His Natural Life:]
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There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. [1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 130:]
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“Do I fidget you ?” he asked apologetically, whilst his long bony fingers buried themselves, string, knots, and all, into the capacious pockets of his magnificent tweed ulster. [1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], chapter 1, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:]
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Profitable operation is being made possible by the widespread introduction of capacious diesel railcars, which for their comfort and speed are very popular with the travelling public. [1953 April, “Reviving U.S.A. Passenger Traffic”, in Railway Magazine, page 218:]
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The only outfit I could conjure up was a capacious linen shift and a saggy cotton-wool cardigan. [2025 July 7, Annie Lowrey, “I Fought Plastic. Plastic Won.”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN:]
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[T]he fresh brave school-life, so full of games, adventures, and good fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at enjoying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousandfold their troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional ill-usage of the big boys in the house. [1857, [Thomas Hughes], “The War of Independence”, in Tom Brown’s School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, part I, page 185:]
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As you will read, Trump himself has a capacious understanding of his power. [2025 April 28, Jeffrey Goldberg, “Signalgate, Trump, and The Atlantic”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN:]
Adjectives inflected like capacious
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Latin capāx (“wide, spacious, large; capable”) + -ious. Displaced native Old English numol.
Verbs referencing "capacious"
Spanish Adjectives
capaz.