Etymograph

English

cable

Cable comes from Middle English cable, from Old Northern French cable, from Late Latin capulum ‘lasso, rope’, from Latin capiō ‘to take, seize’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcapiō1‘to take’
  2. Late Latinc. 200–600 CEcapulum1‘lasso’
  3. Old Northern Frenchc. 842–1400cable1‘cable, rope’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cable1‘a cable or strong rope’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1851cable1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English cable
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1851, Herman Melville, The Whale: ““And now the time of tide has come; the…”.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcapiōWiktionary, English cable‘to take’
  2. Late Latinc. 200–600 CEcapulumWiktionary, English cable‘lasso’
  3. Old Northern Frenchc. 842–1400cableWiktionary, English cable‘cable, rope’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cableWiktionary, English cable‘a cable or strong rope’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1851cableWiktionary, English cable. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1851, Herman Melville, The Whale: ““And now the time of tide has come; the…”

The story

Recorded since c.1205 as Middle English cable, from Old Northern French cable, from Late Latin capulum (‘lasso, rope, halter’), from Latin capiō (‘to take, seize’). Use of the term "cable" to refer to the USD/GBP exchange rate originated in the mid-19th century, when the exchange rate began to be transmitted across the Atlantic by a submarine communications cable.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with cable, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-Indo-European *kap-

  • had ← hadde ← hæfde ← *habdaz ← *habjaną
  • head ← efd ← hēafod ← *haubud ← *haubudą
  • except ← excepter ← exceptus ← excipiō
  • heavy ← hevy ← hefiġ ← *habīg ← *habīgaz
  • capital ← capitale ← capitulum ← caput ← *kaput
  • behavior ← behavoure
  • chapter ← chapitre ← chapitre ← capitulum ← caput
  • captain ← capitain ← capitaine ← capitāneus ← caput
  • achieve ← achieven ← achever
  • catch ← cacchen ← cachier
  • heavily ← hevely ← hefiġlīċe ← hefiġ ← *habīgaz
  • capacity ← capacite ← capacite ← capācitās

307 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun A strong, large-diameter wire or rope, or something resembling such a rope.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “cable”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin capiō / cable