[f. L. capāci- (see above) + -OUS: see -ACIOUS.]

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  † 1.  Of such size as to take in or hold; able to contain; having the capacity of or to (with infinitive).

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1614.  Raleigh, Hist. World, I. vi. (R.). The ark … was sufficiently capacious to contain of all.

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1624.  Massinger, Parl. Love, III. ii. There cannot be room in one lover’s heart Capacious enough to entertain Such multitudes of pleasures.

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1634.  Brereton, Trav. (1844), 154. A spacious harbour capacious of many thousand sail.

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1656.  Cowley, Davideis, IV. What breast but thine capacious to receive The vast infusion?

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1744.  Akenside, Pleas. Imag., II. 244. Is thy short span Capacious of this universal frame?

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1779.  Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 232. A range of … china jars, each capacious of, at least, twenty gallons.

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  2.  Able to hold much; roomy, spacious, wide.

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1634.  Brereton, Trav. (1844), 67. The Lutherans have … a mighty congregation, and a capacious church.

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1656.  trans. Hobbes’ Elem. Philos. (1839), 488. Nature has bestowed upon them wide and capacious ears.

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1690.  Norris, Beatitudes (1694), I. 14. The Importunity of such craving and capacious Appetites.

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1700.  Maidwell, in Collect. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), I. 311. He will erect a capacious Auditorium.

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1818.  Hazlitt, Eng. Poets, iv. (1870), 93. The capacious soul of Shakspeare.

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1840.  Dickens, Old C. Shop, iii. A pair of capacious shoes.

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1856.  Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., I. ii. 64. There is no animal whose memory is equally capacious with that of man.

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1872.  Yeats, Growth Comm., 202. It almost monopolized this trade, distributing from its capacious quays the Indian goods demanded by the European markets.

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  3.  Qualified, adapted or disposed for the reception of. arch. † Of capacity or qualified to do something (obs.).

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1677.  Gale, Crt. Gentiles, IV. II. 450. The more capacious he is to order al means and affaires in subservience to his end and designe.

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1692.  Poems in Burlesque, 20. The girl began To grow capacious of a Man.

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1709.  Brit. Apollo, II. No. 2. 3/1.

            Each Human Soul Capacious is to learn
All Arts, and ev’ry Science to discern.

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1725.  Pope, Odyss., V. 330. For the future sails Supplied the cloth, capacious of the gales. Ibid., XXIII. 201. Then posts, capacious of the frame, I raise.

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1828–40.  Sir W. F. Napier, Penins. War, VII. i. (Rtldg.), I. 328. A mind capacious of warlike affairs.

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1850.  Mrs. Browning, Vis. Poets, ccxliii. Their eyes capacious of renown.

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