English

Alternative forms

• incapsulate

Verb

encapsulate ‎(third-person singular simple present encapsulates, present participle encapsulating, simple past and past participle encapsulated)

1. (transitive) To enclose something as if in a capsule.
   • 2014 Feb. 9, Matthew L. Wald, "Nuclear Waste Solution Seen in Desert Salt Beds," New York Times (retrieved 14 June 2014):

     At a rate of six inches a year, the salt closes in on the waste and encapsulates it for what engineers say will be millions of years.

2. (transitive) To epitomize something by expressing it as a brief summary.
   • 2014 January 21, Hermione Hoby, “Julia Roberts interview for August”, in The Daily Telegraph (UK):

     It's a little moment that seems to encapsulate her appeal ...

3. (software, object-oriented programming) To enclose objects in a common interface in a way that makes them interchangeable, and guards their states from invalid changes.
4. (networking) To enclose data in packets that can be transmitted using a given protocol.

Derived terms

• encapsulation

Translations