Caput

The word “caput”¹ is sometimes used as “head”, especially in the context of anatomy. It is derived from the Latin word “caput” (head), and has a lot of descendants in English.

First, let’s take a look at the word “decapitate”. This word has the prefix “de-“ (meaning “removing”) and caput, and makes perfect sense. For the record, decapitate means “to cut off the head of (a person or animal)”.

Many more commonly used English words are also derived from the Latin caput: chapter, capital, captain, cabbage, chief, cadet, precipitate, and so on. Most of them are pretty intuitive, execpt for the last one. Precipitate is considered to be the combination of “pre” and caput, the former of which in this case means “physically in front of”. Thus, it is understandable that precipitate means “to fall headlong”.

There are several expressions with the term “caput” that remain in modern English (although they are virtually Latin). The most common one, I think, is “caput succedaneum”²³, which refers to a swelling of the head of a baby during birth. If you’ve ever tried your hand at oil painting, you may have heard of the pigment “caput mortuum”⁴, which means “a death’s head”.