Caput vs. Kaput

Caput, is a Latin word meaning literally 'head' or 'top'. It has been borrowed in a variety of English words, including capital, captain, and decapitate. The Italian surname Caputo comes from the appellation used by some Roman military generals. A variant form has surfaced more recently in the title Capo, as in head of La Cosa Nostra. The French language converted 'caput' into chief, chef, and chapitre, later borrowed in English as chapter.

Caput was also the name of the council or ruling body of the University of Cambridge prior to the constitution of 1856 and remains the presiding body of the Senate of the University of Dublin. Caput is also used in medicine to describe any head like protuberance on an organ or structure, such as the caput humeri.

The German word kaputt means destroyed, broken, ruined, or dysfunctional. From German kaputt "destroyed, ruined, lost" (1640s). Maybe is a misunderstanding of an expression from card-playing, capot machen, a partial translation into German of French faire capot, a phrase which meant "to win all the tricks (from the other player) in piquet," an obsolete card game.


The words may be similar, but are not related.