Definitions

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

  • noun A mischievous prank or antic; a caper.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An old story.
  • noun A caper; a prank; a trick.

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

  • noun A shrewd trick; an antic; a caper.
  • noun to play a trick; to cut a caper; -- perhaps so called from the trick of Dido, who having bought so much land as a hide would cover, is said to have cut it into thin strips long enough to inclose a spot for a citadel.

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

  • adverb US Common misspelling of ditto.
  • noun slang, regional A fuss, a row.
  • noun A shrewd trick; an antic; a caper.

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

  • noun (Roman mythology) a princess of Tyre who was the founder and queen of Carthage; Virgil tells of her suicide when she was abandoned by Aeneas

Etymologies

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

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown. The "trick" sense might come from the trick of Dido, queen of Carthage, who, having bought as much land as a hide would cover, is said to have cut it into thin strips long enough to enclose a spot for a citadel.

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