kapitulaci

The etymology is a gift, so take it. To capitulate is not, originally, to give in - it is to write things down under headings. A capitulum in Latin is a little head, and from there a chapter heading, and from there one clause of an agreement. Capitulare meant to draw up an agreement clause by clause, and because the agreements people drew up clause by clause tended to be the terms on which a besieged town handed itself over, the word slid into meaning surrender. Chapter, capital and capitulate are all the same little head.

And now the fence, because the seam is false in Esperanto. Kapo does come from the same Latin caput. That does not make kapitulaci decomposable: there is no kap- plus anything here, no Esperanto rule that gets you from a head to a surrender, and kapitulac- is one indivisible borrowed root. The history is genuine and the grammar is not, which is the recurring lesson of this chapter.

How it differs from the words next to it. Cedi is to yield or give way, in an argument as much as a war. Rezigni is to give something up, to renounce it. Kapitulaci is formal and usually military: it is the act of a city, an army or a government, and it implies terms. The noun is kapitulaco. It is intransitive - you kapitulacas full stop, or kapitulacas al someone.