An economic system based on private ownership, private decisions, and open competition in a free market.

*Capital* is wealth—that is, money and goods—that's used to produce more wealth. Capitalism is practiced enthusiastically by *capitalists,* people who use capital to increase production and make more goods and money. Capitalism works by encouraging competition in a fair and open market. Its opposite is often said to be socialism. Where a *capitalist* economy encourages private actions and ownership, socialism prefers public or government ownership and control of parts of the economy. In a pure capitalist system, there would be no public schools or public parks, no government programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and maybe not even any public highways or police. In a pure socialist system, there wouldn't be any private corporations. In other words, there's just about no such thing as pure capitalism or pure socialism in the modern world.

To surrender or stop resisting; give up.

*Capitulation* often refers to surrender on the battlefield. Originally it only referred to surrender according to an agreement, though that part of the meaning is often absent. Today a teacher can capitulate to her students' cries of protest against a homework assignment, or a father can capitulate to his kids' pleas to stop for ice cream, when the only terms of the agreement are that they'll stop complaining.

(1) To cut off the head; behead. (2) To destroy or make useless.

*Decapitation* is a quick and fairly painless way to go, so it was once considered suitable only for nobles like Sir Walter Raleigh, Mary Queen of Scots, and two of Henry VIII's unfortunate wives. The invention of the guillotine in the 18th century was meant to make execution swifter and more painless than hanging or a badly aimed blow by the executioner's sword.

To repeat or summarize the most important points or stages.

*Capitulation* originally meant the organizing of material under headings. So *recapitulation* usually involves the gathering of the main ideas in a brief summary. But a recapitulation may be a complete restatement as well. In many pieces of classical music, the recapitulation, or *recap,* is the long final section of a movement, where the earlier music is restated in the main key.

Any of several large, tailless apes.

With its suffix *-oid*, meaning “resembling,” the word *anthropoid* means literally “resembling a human being.” Anthropoid apes are so called because they resemble humans more closely than do other primates such as monkeys and lemurs. Some even spend a good deal of time walking on their hind legs. Anthropoids are, of course, highly intelligent (though maybe no more so than many monkeys), and some of them use sticks and stones as tools. (But if you call someone an anthropoid, you're probably not complimenting his intelligence.)

The science and study of human beings.

*Anthropologists,* those who study the whys and wherefores of human existence, today look not only at the tribes of the Amazon but also at the neighborhoods of Brooklyn or Santa Monica. Every group and every culture now seems to be possible material for anthropology. Some anthropologists specialize in the study of human evolution, some study human language, some study archaeology, and some study human culture through the ages. Unlike historians, they tend to focus less on what has been recorded in writings than on what can be discovered in other ways.

Hating or distrusting humans.

Jonathan Swift was famous for the *misanthropy* of works such as *Gulliver 's Travels* which make fun of all kinds of human foolishness. But in spite of his apparent misanthropic attitude, he spent a third of his income on founding a hospital and another third on other charities—certainly not the acts of a true *misanthrope.* Today we often use synonyms such as *cynic* and *grinch* for misanthropic types—while hoping we don't meet too many of them.

(1) A delusion that one has become a wolf. (2) Transformation into a wolf through witchcraft or magic.

The Greek word for “wolf,” *lykos*, combines with the *anthro-* root to produce the meaning “wolfman.” In European folklore, dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, there are men who change into wolves at night and devour animals, people, or graveyard corpses before returning to human form at dawn. Werewolves, or *lycanthropes*, may be evil and possessed by the devil, or may instead be the victims of a werewolf bite and thereby cursed to change into wolf form at the full moon. The werewolf's evil intention is shown by its eating only part of the animal or corpse, rather than all of it like a truly hungry wolf.