John NicholsSybil SteinbergJane Austen
Did you know?
Caper in Latin means "a male goat". Anyone who has watched a young goat frolic in a field or clamber onto the roof of a car knows the kind of crazy fun the English word caper —which is also a verb—is referring to. A capriole is a backward kick done in midair by a trained horse. Capricorn, meaning "horned goat", is a constellation and one of the signs of the zodiac. And a capricious act is one that's done with as little thought as a frisky goat might give it.
Synonyms
Examples of caper in a Sentence
Taryn White, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2024
The dish was based on Salinas' personal recipe, featuring a generous portion of fish bathed in a spicy sauce peppered with capers and jalapeño chiles topped with crispy ribbons of tortilla strips.
—Paul Stephen, San Antonio Express-News, 2 Oct. 2024
Mike Kupper, Los Angeles Times, 5 June 2024
The plot dissolves into sheer lunacy (in both senses of the word), as the whole company comes out to caper in a park in the moonlight — ostensibly to frighten Falstaff, but really just for the unleashed joy of taking over a public space.
—Helen Shaw, Vulture, 9 Aug. 2021
See all Example Sentences for caper 
Dictionary Entries Near caper
Cite this Entry
“Caper.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/caper. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
caper
1 of 3 noun
caper
3 of 3 nounNoun
from earlier capers "caper shrub or berry" (mistaken as a plural), from Middle English caperis (same meaning), from Latin capperis "caper shrub"
Verb
probably an altered form of English capriole "a playful leap, a leap by a trained horse," from early French capriole or early Italian capriola (both, same meaning), derived from Latin capreolus "goat, male deer"
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