Meaning & use
caption
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Meanings
nouncountable
A short line of text under or over a picture or video that explains or describes it.
Grammar: Countable: one caption, two captions. Often used with 'under' or 'on'.
Patterns
- a caption under a photo
- write a caption
- add a caption to something
The caption under the photograph says 'Summer 2019'.
She wrote a funny caption for her Instagram post.
The caption explains what is happening in the video.
verbtransitive
To add a short line of text to a picture or video to explain or describe it.
Grammar: Takes an object: caption a photo. Often used in the passive: the photo was captioned.
Patterns
- caption a photo
- caption something with something
He captioned the picture with a quote from his favorite book.
The newspaper captioned the photo 'Protesters in the square'.
She captioned the video 'My first attempt at baking bread'.
Word forms
| plural | captions |
|---|---|
| third person singular | captions |
| past tense | captioned |
| past participle | captioned |
| -ing form | captioning |
Common combinations
- write a caption
- Please write a caption for each image in the report.
- add a caption
- You can add a caption to any photo in the app.
- photo caption
- The photo caption was too small to read.
- caption under a picture
- The caption under the picture gave the date and location.
- closed captions
- Turn on closed captions if you have trouble hearing the dialogue.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- captioning noun
- The act or system of adding captions, especially for TV or online video.
- captioned adjective
- Having a caption; e.g., a captioned photograph.
Commonly confused: caption or subtitle?
caption vs subtitle
Subtitles translate or transcribe speech; captions often describe sounds or images, though the words overlap in video contexts.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'caption' correctly?
Choose one answer.
The past tense 'captioned' is correct for a finished action. Option 2 uses the base form without a subject-verb agreement for past time, option 3 mixes present tense with 'yesterday', and option 4 uses the -ing form without a helping verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “caption”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.