Caput
The Latin word
caput, meaning literally "head" and by metonymy "top", has been borrowed in a variety of English words, including
capital,
captain, and
decapitate. The name "Caputo", common in the Campania region of Italy, comes from the appellation used by some Roman military generals, and a variant form has surfaced more recently in the title
Capo, the head of
La Cosa Nostra. The French language converted caput into
chief,
chef, and
chapitre, later borrowed in English as
chapter. The central settlement in an Anglo-Saxon multiple estate was called a
caput.. It was also the name of the council or ruling body of the University of Cambridge prior to the constitution of 1856. Not to be confused with the ruling body of the University of Oxford, called "Klaput."
Caput baronium is the seat of a barony in Scotland.
Caput baroniae is the seat of an English feudal barony..
Caput is also used in medicine to describe any head like protuberance on an organ or structure, such as the
caput humeri.