The word capsule (from the Latin capsula, a small box), has many similar meanings in English:

• In botany, a capsule is a type of dry fruit as in the poppy, iris, foxglove, etc. See Capsule (fruit).
• In botany, a capsule is another term for the sporangium of mosses and hornworts.
• In medicine, the word capsule is used for a small gelatinous case enclosing a dose of medication. See tablet.
• Capsules, meaning a metal cap or cover on bottles and jars as on wine bottles, were historically made of lead, and protected the cork from being gnawed away by rodents or infested with cork weevil. Because of research showing that trace amounts of lead could remain on the lip of the bottle, lead capsules were slowly phased out, and by the 1990s, most capsules were made of aluminum foil or plastic.
• In anatomy, the term capsule is used to denote a cover or envelope partly or wholly surrounding a structure. Every diarthrodial joint possesses a fibrous or ligamentous capsule, lined with synovial membrane, attached to the adjacent ends of the articulating bones. The term is particularly applied to the sac which encloses the crystalline lens of the eye; to Glisson's capsule, a thin areolar coat of fibrous tissue lying inside the tunica serosa of the liver; to the glomerular capsules in the kidney substance; to the suprarenal capsules, two small flattened organs in the epigastric region; and to the internal and external capsules of the brain.
• A space capsule is a type of manned spacecraft.
• In microbiology, the term capsule refers to a layer that lies outside the cell wall of bacteria. This layer is well organized and not easily washed off. It is usually composed of polysaccharides, but could be composed of other materials. Capsules help protect bacteria against phagocytosis. Capsules also contain water which protects bacteria against desiccation. They also exclude bacterial viruses and most hydrophobic toxic materials such as detergents.

See also time capsule Botany is the scientific study of plant life. ... Fruit stall in Barcelona, Spain. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Papaveraceae. ... Species See text. ... Species Digitalis ferruginea Digitalis grandiflora Digitalis lanata Digitalis lutea Digitalis obscura Digitalis purpurea Digitalis is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous biennials, perennials and shrubs in the foxglove family Scrophulariaceae. ... Flowers and fruit (capsules) of the ground orchid, Spathoglottis plicata. ... A sporangium (pl. ... Subclasses Andreaeidae Sphagnidae Tetraphidae Polytrichidae Buxbaumiidae Bryidae Archidiidae Moss is a type of simple or non-vascular plant, of the class Musci, in the division Bryophyta, that have rhizoids instead of true roots. ... Orders Anthocerotales Nothothylales Hornworts (or horned liverworts) are a group of non-vascular plants comprising the class Anthocerotae. ... Medicine on the Web NLM (National Library of Medicine, contains resources for patients and healthcare professionals) Virtual Hospital (digital health sciences library by the University of Iowa) Online Medical Dictionary Collection of links to free medical resources Categories: Medicine | Health ... For other meanings please see Tablet (disambiguation) Common disk-shaped pills A pharmacological tablet is a medicinal or other active substance mixed with binder powders and pressed into a tablet form. ... Reusable glass milk bottles A bottle is a small container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a mouth. ... The word jar has several meanings: A jar is a wide-mouthed container typically made of glass or earthenware designed to hold a fluid. ... A glass of red wine Wine display at the Mt Markey Winery This article is about the beverage. ... A cork stopper for a wine bottle A Champagne cork Cork material is a subset of generic cork tissue, harvested for commercial use primarily from the Cork oak tree, Quercus suber, with Portugal producing most cork worldwide. ... Families Many, see text The order Rodentia is the most numerous of all the branches on the mammal family tree. ... Anatomical drawing of the human muscles from the Encyclopédie. ... An eye is an organ that detects light. ... In the anatomy of animals, the brain, or encephalon, is the supervisory center of the nervous system. ... A space capsule is a tiny manned spacecraft of the kind used in the Mercury and Gemini programs, using an Ablative heat shield for reentry. ... Ariane 5 lifts off with the Rosetta probe on 2nd of March, 2004. ... Microbiology (in Greek micron = small and biologia = studying life) is the study of microorganisms, including viruses, prokaryotes and simple eukaryotes. ... A cell wall is a more or less solid layer surrounding a cell. ... Phyla/Divisions Actinobacteria Aquificae Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Chlamydiae/Verrucomicrobia Chloroflexi Chrysiogenetes Cyanobacteria Deferribacteres Deinococcus-Thermus Dictyoglomi Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria Firmicutes Fusobacteria Gemmatimonadetes Nitrospirae Omnibacteria Planctomycetes Proteobacteria Spirochaetes Thermodesulfobacteria Thermomicrobia Thermotogae Bacteria (singular, bacterium) are a major group of living organisms. ... Polysaccharides (sometimes called glycans) are relatively complex carbohydrates. ... Phagocytosis (literally, cell eating) is a form of endocytosis where large particles are enveloped by the cell membrane of a (usually larger) cell and internalized to form a phagosome, or food vacuole. ... Desiccation is the state of extreme dryness, or the process of extreme drying. ... A common alternate meaning of virus is computer virus. ... In chemistry, hydrophobic or lipophilic species, or hydrophobes, tend to be electrically neutral and nonpolar, and thus prefer other neutral and nonpolar solvents or molecular environments. ... A detergent is a compound, or a mixture of compounds, intended to assist cleaning. ... A time capsule is a historic cache of goods and/or information, usually intended as a method of communication with people in the future. ...