Caption

//ˈkæp.ʃən// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The descriptive heading or title, of a document or part thereof.
  2. 2
    brief description accompanying an illustration wordnet
  3. 3
    A title or brief explanation attached to an illustration, cartoon, user interface element, etc.

    "Some of the photographs are new and interesting, but many captions are amateurish, uninformative or simply careless."

  4. 4
    translation of foreign dialogue of a movie or TV program; usually displayed at the bottom of the screen wordnet
  5. 5
    A piece of text appearing on screen as a subtitle or other part of a film or broadcast, describing dialogue (and sometimes other sound) for viewers who cannot hear.

    "(theater, performance production) By analogy, text in a similar system used in a performance venue for transcription of a live event."

Show 4 more definitions
  1. 6
    taking exception; especially a quibble based on a captious argument wordnet
  2. 7
    The section on an official paper (for example, as part of a seizure or capture) that describes when, where, and what was taken, found or executed, and who authorized the act.
  3. 8
    A seizure or capture, especially of tangible property (chattel). obsolete

    "1919 Thomas Welburn Hughes. A treatise on criminal law and procedure. The Bobbs-Merril Co., Indianapolis, IN, USA. Sec. 557 (p. 378). The caption and asportation must be felonious."

  4. 9
    A story that is embedded in a pre-existing image (sometimes with image manipulation) Internet
Verb
  1. 1
    To add captions to a text or illustration.

    "Only once the drawing is done will the letterer caption it."

  2. 2
    provide with a caption, as of a photograph or a drawing wordnet
  3. 3
    To add captions to a film or broadcast.

Synonyms

All synonyms
subtitlebannerbanner headdrop headdroplineepigraph

Example

More examples

"Imogen of the Internet cannot look at a cat, even a dead one, without coming up with a blood-curdlingly saccharine, egregiously misspelled caption in 60-point white Impact."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin captiō (“deception, fraud”), from the past participle of capiō (“I take, I seize”) (English capture). Compare Middle English capcioun (“seizure, capture”).

Related phrases

close captionedclose-captionedclosed captionclosed captionedclosed captioningclosed captionsclosed-captionclosed-captionedclosed-captioningopen captionopen captionsopen-caption

More for "caption"

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Related Topic Clusters

Social Media Caption Words

Modern caption vocabulary for short-form engagement without low-signal fluff.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.