Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the execution of a person by the state as punishment for a crime. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital origins from Latin capitalis, literally “regarding the head” (Latin caput). Hence, a capital crime originally was to be punished by the loss of the head.

from wikipedia

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What really fascinated me was that “regarding the head” in Latin is caput. So, if we say, some one has gone “kaput” what does that actually mean?