capability

English

Etymology

Formed in Modern English as capable +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ə.ti/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ə.ti/, [ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ə.ɾi]
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˌkæɪ.pəˈbɪl.ə.ti/, [ˌkæɪ.pəˈbɪl.ə.ɾi]
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˌkæɪ.pəˈbəl.ə.ti/, [ˌkæɪ.pəˈbəl.ə.ɾi]
• Hyphenation: ca‧pa‧bil‧i‧ty
• Rhymes: -ɪlɪti

Noun

capability (countable and uncountable, plural capabilities)

1. The power or ability to generate an outcome.
   • 2024 October 5, Jessie Yeung, “Hong Kong plans to install thousands of surveillance cameras. Critics say it’s more proof the city is moving closer to China”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     And that sight will become more common in the coming years, as the city’s police pursue an ambitious campaign to install thousands of cameras to elevate their surveillance capabilities.

2. (computing) A digital token allowing a user or process to interact in a specified way with an object that is subject to access control. [from 1960s]

   A file descriptor can be considered a capability that can only be leveraged using the appropriate system calls, passing it as an argument.

   • 1987 November, Richard Y. Kain, Carl E. Landwehr, “On Access Checking in Capability-Based Systems”, in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering‎^[2], volume SE-13, number 2, archived from the original on 3 May 2019, pages 202–207:

     Enforcing a security policy means controlling the rights users can acquire to data. In a capability machine, a user’s rights are defined by the capabilities he (or a process acting on his behalf) can obtain and the access rights conferred by those capabilities.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:skill

Derived terms

• capability overhang
• capernosity
• immunocapability
• incapability
• limited-capability
• negative capability

Related terms

• capable (adjective)

Translations

the power or ability to generate an outcome

• Albanian : Aftesia (sq)
• Armenian: կարողություն (hy) (karoġutʻyun)
• Bhojpuri: क्षमता (kṣamᵊtā)
• Bulgarian: способност (bg) f (sposobnost)
• Catalan: capacitat (ca) f
• Esperanto: ebleco, kapablo, eblo, fakulto
• Finnish: pystyvyys (fi), kykenevyys (fi), kyky (fi)
• French: capacité (fr) f
• Galician: capacidade (gl) f
• Georgian: შნო (šno), შესაძლებლობა (šesaʒlebloba)
• German: Fähigkeit (de) f
• Hindi: क्षमता (hi) (kṣamtā)
• Ido: kapableso (io)
• Indonesian: kapabilitas, kemampuan (id)
• Irish: cumas (ga) m
• Italian: capacità (it) f, possibilità (it)
• Japanese: 能力 (ja) (nōryoku)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: توانا (twana)

• Latin: potentia f
• Macedonian: способност f (sposobnost)
• Malay: keupayaan (ms)
• Malayalam: കഴിവ് (ml) (kaḻivŭ), ശേഷി (ml) (śēṣi)
• Manx: jargaght f, jargallys m
• Maori: āheitanga
• Occitan: capacitat (oc) f
• Polish: możliwość (pl) f, zdolność (pl) f
• Portuguese: capacidade (pt) f
• Romanian: capabilitate (ro) f
• Russian: спосо́бность (ru) f (sposóbnostʹ)
• Slovak: schopnosť f, spôsobilosť f
• Slovene: zmožnost f
• Spanish: capacidad (es) f

in computing

• Esperanto: mandato (eo)

References

• capability on Wikipedia.Wikipedia