capstone

From Middle English capston; equivalent to cap +‎ stone.

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capstone (plural capstones)

1. Any of the stones making up the top layer of a wall; a coping stone.
2. (figurative) A crowning achievement, culmination or finishing touch.
   • 1904, Guy Wetmore Carryl, Far from the Maddening Girls, chapter 5:

     “You see, I’ve never had a girl friend,” I added, by way of topping the obelisk of silliness with the capstone of fatuity.

   • 1969, The Post-Apollo Space Program: Directions for the Future, NASA:

     Success of the Apollo program has been the capstone to a series of significant accomplishments for the United States in space in a broad spectrum of manned and unmanned exploration missions and in the application of space techniques for the benefit of man.

• capestane, copestone

capstone (third-person singular simple present capstones, present participle capstoning, simple past and past participle capstoned)

1. (transitive) To complete as a crowning achievement; to top off.
   • 2012, Keith Brooke, Strange Divisions and Alien Territories, page 23:

     Capstoning a decade's worth of linked short stories, The Quiet War (2008) was a vivid and tense novel about a solar system sliding into conflict.

2. (transitive, US, military, informal) To train in the Capstone Military Leadership Program.
   • 1981, Army Reserve Magazine, volumes 27-28, page 24:

     “Capstoned” units are now able to train and plan in peacetime with the command with which they will fight in wartime.

• caponets, opencast, patonces, potances