Electrical devices that store electrical charge and release it when needed; commonly used in electronics.
From 'capacitor' (from Latin 'capax' meaning 'able to hold'), a component named for its capacity to hold charge.
Capacitors are everywhere in electronics but invisible—every TV remote, computer, and power supply contains dozens of them, and they're one of the few electronic components that actually fail predictably and can be replaced to fix old electronics!
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