Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An impulsive change of mind.
  • noun An inclination to change one's mind impulsively.
  • noun A sudden, unpredictable action or change.
  • noun Music A capriccio.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A sudden start of the mind; a sudden change of opinion or humor, without apparent or adequate motive; a whim, freak, or particular fancy.
  • noun The habit of acting according to varying impulses; capriciousness.
  • noun Same as capriccio, 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An abrupt change in feeling, opinion, or action, proceeding from some whim or fancy; a freak; a notion.
  • noun (Mus.) See Capriccio.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An impulsive, seemingly unmotivated notion or action.
  • noun An unpredictable or sudden condition, change, or series of changes.
  • noun A disposition to be impulsive.
  • noun An impulsive change of mind.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a sudden desire

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Italian capriccio, from caporiccio, fright, sudden start (orginally, “head with the hair standing on end (resembling a hedgehog)”, but later influenced by capra, goat, because of goats' frisky movements) : capo, head (from Latin caput; see kaput- in Indo-European roots) + riccio, curly (from Latin ēricius, hedgehog, from ēr).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French caprice, from Italian capriccio, from caporiccio ("fright, sudden start"): capo ("head"), from Latin caput + riccio ("curly"), from Latin ericius ("hedgehog"), or from Italian capro ("goat")

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Examples

  • Paula seemed struck by the generous and cheerful fairness of his remarks, and said gently, 'Perhaps your departure is not absolutely necessary for my happiness; and I do not wish from what you call caprice --'

    A Laodicean : a Story of To-day Thomas Hardy 1884

  • There is hardly any one here who can understand what they call my caprice of entering the priesthood, and these good people tell me, with rustic candor, that I ought to throw aside the clerical garb; that to be a priest is very well for a poor young man; but that I, who am to be a rich man’s heir, should marry, and console the old age of my father by giving him half a dozen handsome and robust grandchildren.

    March 22d. Part I.—Letters from My Nephew 1917

  • They are guarded better by their calculations than a virgin by her mother and her convent; and they have invented the word caprice for that unbartered love which they allow themselves from time to time, for a rest, for an excuse, for a consolation, like usurers, who cheat

    Camille Alexandre Dumas fils 1859

  • Hervey, 'that she wondered that a man who was so well acquainted with the female sex should be surprised at any instance of caprice from a woman.'

    Belinda 1801

  • There was a tendency to de-personalize this divine being, and with this came an absence of caprice, that is, the regularity of natural phenomena was made to depend on a regularity in the operation of their cause or causes.

    CAUSATION JULIUS WEINBERG 1968

  • Yet that is the caprice, that is the unreasonable, the foul, the gross, the monstrous, the outrageous, incredible injustice of which we are hourly guilty towards the whole unhappy race of negroes.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • They are illustrations of a general physiological law that in some cases might be called a caprice of nature, in virtue of which the rudiments of a process that is to be effected at a future epoch are sketched out during an epoch already existing.

    The Education of American Girls Anna Callender Brackett

  • How funny it would be, if the French some day, as a novelty, or what they would call a caprice, were to try the effect of truth; "though not naturally honest," as Autolycus says, "were to become so by chance."

    Biographical Study of A W Kinglake Tuckwell, Rev W 1902

  • To behave according to caprice is to oscillate mechanically between two or more ready-made alternatives and at length to settle on one of them; it is no real maturing of an internal state, no real evolution; it is merely -- however paradoxical the assertion may seem -- bending the will to imitate the mechanism of the intellect.

    Evolution créatrice. English Henri Bergson 1900

  • The husband's faithlessness is called a caprice, an adventure, a craving or madness of the senses.

    His Excellency the Minister Jules Claretie 1876

Comments

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  • the word reminds me of capri-sun

    October 29, 2011