per capita
Per person — a total divided by the number of people it covers.
“Per capita income has risen for three years.”
“The country ranks low in total emissions and high per capita, because there are very few people in it.”
“Reporting the figure per capita made the comparison look flattering, and the same data grouped by household income showed the gain had gone almost entirely to the top decile.”
Per capita means by heads, and it began as a rule for dividing an estate. Roman inheritance law distinguished a division per capita, in which every surviving claimant takes an equal share, from a division per stirpes, by branch, in which each family line takes one share and splits it internally.
The difference is not academic. Three surviving children and two grandchildren by a dead fourth child receive very different amounts depending on which rule applies, and both terms are still in working use in wills and succession law.
Statistics borrowed the phrase in the nineteenth century and made it famous. Per capita income, per capita emissions and per capita consumption all mean the same operation — divide by population — and all carry the same limitation, which is that an average tells you nothing about how unevenly the total is spread.
What Rome left in English — Caesar, the arena, the roads, the law, and the poets.
- 01
a Pyrrhic victory (idiom)
A win that costs so much it feels almost like a defeat.
- 02
a Roman holiday (idiom)
Enjoyment taken from watching somebody else suffer.
- 03
ad hoc (idiom)
Made for this one situation, with no general rule behind it.
- 04
ad nauseam (idiom)
Repeated so often that everyone is sick of it.
- 05
all roads lead to Rome (idiom)
Different paths can take one to the same goal.
- 06
alter ego (idiom)
A second self — either a trusted other person or a different side of yourself.
Last updated August 3, 2026