Python: Capitalize first and last letters of each word of a given string

Last update on June 12 2025 12:42:48 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

Capitalize first and last letters of words.

Write a Python program to capitalize the first and last letters of each word in a given string.

Visual Presentation:

Sample Solution-1:

Python Code:

# Define a function 'capitalize_first_last_letters' that takes a string 'str1' as input.
def capitalize_first_last_letters(str1):
    # Capitalize the first letter of each word and store the result in 'str1' and 'result'.
    str1 = result = str1.title()

    # Initialize an empty string 'result' to store the final result.
    result = ""

    # Split the 'str1' into words and iterate through each word.
    for word in str1.split():
        # Append the word with the last letter capitalized to the 'result' string, followed by a space.
        result += word[:-1] + word[-1].upper() + " "

    # Remove the trailing space and return the modified string.
    return result[:-1]

# Call the 'capitalize_first_last_letters' function with different input strings and print the results.
print(capitalize_first_last_letters("python exercises practice solution"))
print(capitalize_first_last_letters("w3resource")) 

Sample Output:

PythoN ExerciseS PracticE SolutioN
W3ResourcE

Flowchart:

Sample Solution-2:

Capitalizes the first letter of a string.

• Use list slicing and str.upper() to capitalize the first letter of the string.
• Use str.join() to combine the capitalized first letter with the rest of the characters.
• Omit the lower_rest parameter to keep the rest of the string intact, or set it to True to convert to lowercase.

Python Code:

# Define a function 'capitalize_first_letter' that takes a string 's' as input.
# The 'lower_rest' parameter determines whether the rest of the string should be in lowercase.
def capitalize_first_letter(s, lower_rest=False):
    # Create a new string by joining the following components:
    # 1. The first character of the input string 's' capitalized using '.upper()'.
    # 2. The rest of the string in lowercase (if 'lower_rest' is True) or as is (if 'lower_rest' is False).
    return ''.join([s[:1].upper(), (s[1:].lower() if lower_rest else s[1:])])

# Call the 'capitalize_first_letter' function with different input strings and 'lower_rest' values.
print(capitalize_first_letter('javaScript'))
print(capitalize_first_letter('python', True))

Sample Output:

JavaScript
Python

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

• Write a Python program to capitalize the first and last letters of each word in a sentence using split and join methods.
• Write a Python program to iterate over words in a string and transform each by capitalizing the first and last characters.
• Write a Python program to use list comprehension to modify each word so that its first and last letters are in uppercase.
• Write a Python program to implement this transformation using slicing and conditional expressions for words of varying lengths.

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