Word.ws English Dictionary

caprice

/kəˈpɹiːs/

caprice noun: an impulsive, seemingly unmotivated action, change of mind, or notion.

Noun

caprice (plural caprices)

  1. An impulsive, seemingly unmotivated action, change of mind, or notion.
    • Though more thoughtful than Madame de Mercœur, yet it asked far more knowledge of society—that wilderness of small intricacies—for her to penetrate into the motives of those who seemed so suddenly struck with her fascination; but she was too clear-headed to be deceived, and set it all down under...1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 244
    • It would have been a great privilege to be the mistress of an old time-honoured mansion, to call oaks and elms her own, to know that acres of gardens were submitted to her caprices, to look at herds of cows and oxen, and be aware that they lowed on her own pastures.1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “The Honourable Mr. Glascock”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 107
    Synonyms:
    whim
  2. A brief romance.
    • The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that a caprice lasts a little longer.1891, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    fling
  3. An unpredictable or sudden condition, change, or series of changes.
    • After that we cast off all allegiance to immediate, tangible, and time-touched things, and entered a fantastic world of hushed unreality in which the narrow, ribbon-like road rose and fell and curved with an almost sentient and purposeful caprice amidst the tenantless green peaks and half-deserted...1931, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter 6, in The Whisperer in Darkness
  4. A disposition to be impulsive.
    • Yet, Britain, vvhence this Caprice of thy Sons, / VVhich thro' their various ranks vvith fury runs? / The cauſe is plain, a cauſe vvhich vve muſt bleſs; / For Caprice is the Daughter of Succeſs, […]1726, [Edward Young], The Universal Passion. Satire the Last. To the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole., 1st edition, London: […] J[ames] Roberts […], →OCLC, page 2
    • This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them, for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite. All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so […] as to do as little good, and to plague and disappoint as many people as possible.1821, William Hazlitt, “Essay XII. On Will-making.”, in Table-Talk; or, Original Essays, volume I, London: John Warren, […], →OCLC, page 267
  5. A capriccio.

Proper noun capitalized: Caprice

Caprice

  1. A female given name.

caprice meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

caprice in Hindi

caprice, impulse
तरंग taraṅg

caprice in Tamil

கலைத்துறையில் வரம்பற்ற கற்பனை

caprice in Urdu

موج, ترنگ, وسواس

caprice in Bengali

মনের ক্ষণিক পরিবর্তনশীল ইচ্ছা, খেয়াল
More languagesFewer languages
caprice in Malayalam
അസ്ഥിരബുദ്ധി, ചാപല്യം, ലഘിമ, ലഘിമാവ്
caprice in Kannada
ಮರುಳಾಟ, ಮನಸ್ವೀ ನಡತೆ, ಮನಬಂದ ಚರ್ಯೆ, ಮನಬಂದಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವ ವ್ಯವಹಾರ

Examples of caprice in a sentence

  • Yet, notwithstanding her caprices, she is a noble-minded woman.1899, Harold MacGrath, Arms and the Woman:
  • Skill, endurance, and perseverance may almost be called muscular virtues; and fatigue, velleity, caprice, ennui, restlessness, lack of control and poise, muscular faults.1906, G. Stanley Hall, Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene, page 9:

Synonyms of caprice

Forms of caprice

pluralcaprices

Plural of caprice: caprices

Origin of caprice

Borrowed from French caprice, from Italian capriccio, from caporiccio (“fright, sudden start”). Doublet of capriccio.

Words that rhyme with caprice

31 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about caprice

What does caprice mean?
Caprice means an impulsive, seemingly unmotivated action, change of mind, or notion.
What is caprice in Hindi?
Caprice in Hindi is तरंग (taraṅg). See Caprice meaning in Hindi.
How do you use caprice in a sentence?
Yet, notwithstanding her caprices, she is a noble-minded woman.
What part of speech is caprice?
Caprice can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce caprice?
Caprice is pronounced /kəˈpɹiːs/.
What is the plural of caprice?
The plural of caprice is caprices.

Words near caprice in the dictionary

  1. capriccio
  2. capriccios
  3. capricciosa
  4. capricciosas
  5. capriccioso
  6. caprice
  7. caprices
  8. caprichio
  9. capricious
  10. capriciously
  11. capriciousness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: caprice (page history and authors); Caprice (page history and authors); तरंग (Hindi) (page history and authors); caprice (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); caprice (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); caprice (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); caprice (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); caprice (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “caprice.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caprice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.