(captures, capturing, captured)
Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English.
1.
If you capture someone or something, you catch them, especially in a war.
The guerrillas shot down one aeroplane and captured the pilot...
The Russians now appear ready to capture more territory from the Chechens.
...the murders of fifteen thousand captured Polish soldiers.
VERB: V n, V n from n, V-ed
•
Capture is also a noun.
...the final battles which led to the army's capture of the town...
The shooting happened while the man was trying to evade capture by the security forces.
N-UNCOUNT: oft with poss
2.
If something or someone captures a particular quality, feeling, or atmosphere, they represent or express it successfully.
Their mood was captured by one who said, 'Students here don't know or care about campus issues.'
= encapsulate
VERB: no cont, V n
3.
If something captures your attention or imagination, you begin to be interested or excited by it. If someone or something captures your heart, you begin to love them or like them very much.
...the great names of the Tory party who usually capture the historian's attention.
...one man's undying love for the woman who captured his heart.
VERB: V n, V n
4.
If an event is captured in a photograph or on film, it is photographed or filmed.
The incident was captured on videotape...
The images were captured by TV crews filming outside the base.
...photographers who captured the traumatic scene.
VERB: be V-ed on/in n, be V-ed, V n, also V n on/in n
5.
If you capture something that you are trying to obtain in competition with other people, you succeed in obtaining it.
In 1987, McDonald's captured 19 percent of all fast-food sales...
= win, secure
VERB: V n