The lexicographer Francesco Alunno, in Ricchezze della lingua volgare sopra il Boccaccio (1543), notes both meanings of the word without attempting to reconcile them: "And a sudden and unreasoning inclination is called capriccio, such as seems to come in the manner of goats, which all leap if one leaps. The sense "whim, fancy" has suggested a connection with capra "goat," an animal stereotypically known for its sudden leaps (compare capriole). 1292), is apparently rare in Italian after the eighteenth century, but derivatives such as raccapricciarsi "to be horrified," raccapriccio "horror, disgust," are still current. The earlier meaning "shiver of horror," first attested as a translation of Latin horror by the Florentine author Bono Giamboni (died ca. 9, column 1055), when it was borrowed by French. With this use set aside, the sense "whim, fancy" is not attested before the sixteenth century according to the Lessico etimologico italiano (vol. 1312) used caporiccio in the sense "desire, wish" ("desiderio, voglia"), but in the sole occurrence of the word in the sonnets attributed to him, the meaning is actually far from clear. Cortelazzo and Zolli state that the Sienese poet Cecco Angiolieri (died ca. Zolli ( Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana) consider the entire etymology uncertain, and speculate that two etyma of independent origin have somehow converged phonetically. Italian capriccio has been a word of disputed origin, the principle issue being the peculiar semantic shift from "shiver of horror"-a meaning easily explicable from the compound's bases "head" and "hedgehog"-to "whim, caprice," and hence to various further senses. Send us feedback about these examples.īorrowed from French, going back to Middle French, borrowed from Italian capriccio "whim, fancy," earlier and medieval Tuscan caporiccio "bristling of the hair with fear, shiver of horror, shudder," probably from capo "head" (going back to Vulgar Latin *capum, re-formation of Latin caput "head") + riccio "hedgehog," going back to Latin ērīcius - more at head entry 1, urchin These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'caprice.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. 2023 Musk appears to be hand-crafting Twitter’s policies based not on academic research or expert opinion, but on caprice and personal vendetta. 2023 On the highways and in the lowlands of European painting, there may be no more perplexing case of reputational caprice than Johannes Vermeer (1632-75). Isaiah Freeman-Schub, Robb Report, 8 Mar. 2021 Buy Now on Mr Porter: $1,020 Best Lightweight Rain Jacket for Spring Arc’teryx Ralle Lightweight Jacket Count this as your one big concession to the caprice of spring. Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, Based on a stage play by Kemp, One Night in Miami uses an anachronistic conceit that is exploitative, not insightful like that in Nic Roeg’s Insignificance (1985), which convened 20th-century icons Marilyn Monroe, Joe McCarthy, Joe DiMaggio, and Albert Einstein as a cultural caprice. 2020 The end-of-December Oscar eligibility release glut has been a tradition for decades, one that causes countless presumptive contenders to slip through the cracks for various reasons, sometimes relating to quality, sometimes to studio clout and sometimes to the whimsies of caprice. Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2023 Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the government is the natural consequence. Emily Mullin, WIRED, 21 June 2023 One theatergoer’s mindless fluff is another theatergoer’s inspired caprice. Recent Examples on the Web The futures of these companies depend on the caprices of a court system frequently in conflict with itself, as well as potential changes in US state and federal laws.
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