capability

noun ca·pa·bil·i·ty \ ˌkā-pə-ˈbi-lə-tē \

Definition of capability

plural capabilities

1 :the quality or state of being capable; also :ability

The mayor has demonstrated his capability to handle municipal problems.

2 :a feature or faculty capable of development :potentiality

This vacant urban district has great capabilities.

3 :the facility or potential for an indicated use or deployment

the capability of a metal to be fused

nuclear capability

See capability defined for English-language learners

Examples of capability in a Sentence

The device has the capability of recording two television channels at once.
the nature of the tasks to which you are assigned will depend on your capabilities

Recent Examples of capability from the Web

Then there's the gadget's personal coaching capability, Fitbit Coach.

— Health.com, "Why We’re Excited About Fitbit’s New Smartwatch, the Ionic," 28 Aug. 2017
Volunteers bonded with riders, building relationships and raising awareness about the capabilities of those with disabilities in our community.

— The Aegis, "Harford's iCan Bike Camp lauded by all involved," 24 Aug. 2017
More importantly, though, its moisturizing, blurring capabilities will make sure your skin look luxurious, too.

— wendy gould, Allure, "12 Luxury Beauty Launches to Satisfy Your Inner Rich Bitch This Fall," 24 Aug. 2017
The current situation rises out of the frustration of many white people that Obama proves that many blacks can and do succeed well beyond the capabilities of many white people.

— Howard County Times, "Racial divisions, animosity remain on full display [Letter]," 17 Aug. 2017
The U.S. military has a large presence in South Korea (28,500 troops) and Japan (54,000), and could easily target North Korea’s command-and-control capability, its nuclear programs, and its missile launchers.

— krishnadev calamur, The Atlantic, "Trump Is 'Locked and Loaded' in a Nuclear Game of Chicken," 11 Aug. 2017
However, experts say Japan does not currently have the capability to shoot down a missile flying over its territory headed for Guam.

— Alaska Dispatch News, "North Korea details Guam missile plan, calls Trump’s warning a ‘load of nonsense’," 10 Aug. 2017
But on the flip side, Threadripper systems can tap into capabilities that the rest of AMD’s CPU lineup can’t—quad-channel memory support, eight DIMM slots, and a whopping 64 PCI-E lanes, most notably.

— brad chacos, PCWorld, "AMD Ryzen Threadripper X399 motherboards compared: Specs, prices, and features," 4 Aug. 2017
With recent developments in AI, intelligence capabilities that are comparable to, or in many cases beyond, human capacity are being developed.

— bill huang, Scientific American Blog Network, "Robots with Their Heads in the Clouds," 2 Aug. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'capability.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.