Capital

Money or money’s worth available for production.

“His capital is continually going from him [the merchant] in some shape, and returning to him in another.”—Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, vol. i. book ii. chap. i. p. 276.

Active capital. Ready money or property readily convertible into it.

Circulating capital. Wages or raw material. This sort of capital is not available a second time for the same purpose.

Fixed capital. Land, buildings, and machinery, which are only gradually consumed.

Political capital is something employed to serve a political purpose. Thus, the Whigs make political capital out of the errors of the Tories, and vice versâ.

“He tried to make capital out of his rival’s discomfiture.”—The Times.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.