Word of the Day

: December 5, 2017

encapsulate

verb in-KAP-suh-layt

What It Means

1 : to enclose in or as if in a capsule

2 : to show or express in a brief way : epitomize, summarize

3 : to become enclosed in a capsule

encapsulate in Context

"Just one game encapsulated everything the Patriots have done well in the red zone this year and everything they have not." — Adam Kurkjian, The Boston Herald, 15 Oct. 2017

"Like many other research groups, the Brown team set out to improve the oral uptake of drugs by encapsulating them in polymers that would stick to the mucosal lining of the stomach and intestines." — Rebecca Rawls, Chemical & Engineering News, 31 Mar. 1997

Did You Know?

Encapsulate and its related noun, capsule, derive from capsula, a diminutive form of the Latin noun capsa, meaning "box." Capsa also gave us our noun case (the container kind; the legal sense has a different origin). The original sense of encapsulate, meaning "to enclose something in a capsule," first appeared in the late 19th century. Its extended meaning, "to give a summary or synopsis of something," plays on the notion of a capsule as something compact, self-contained, and often easily digestible. There is also a verb capsule, which is more or less synonymous with encapsulate.