Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use capricious in a sentence

14 example sentences · adjective

Capricious means impulsive and unpredictable; determined by chance, impulse, or whim. Example: “I almost died in a capricious winter storm.”

Examples of capricious by meaning

adjectiveImpulsive and unpredictable; determined by chance, impulse, or whim.

  • I almost died in a capricious winter storm.
  • The apparent capricious nature of lightning is evidenced by the range of extremes as well as, in some cases, the unique nature of the damage that results.1965 February 25, Civil Aeronautics Board, “Analysis”, in Aircraft Accident Report: Pan American World Airways, Inc Boeing 707-121, N709PA...

More sentences with capricious

  • “Capricious Maneuvers,” the eight-minute romp of a curtain raiser that Mr.2014 February 20, Brian Seibert, “Dance: Next Step for Force in Ballet”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 Aug 2014. From the entry curtain-raiser
  • The film boasts a militantly capricious and typically Potteresque innovation: all the characters speak in iambic pentameter.2007, Richard Armstrong, Tom Charity, Lloyd Hughes, Jessica Winter, The Rough Guide to Film, Rough Guides, →ISBN, page 430, column 1. From the entry Potteresque
  • This is a capricious devil, the furnace, though I say it myself, and it wants regular bellowsing.1999, Ferdinand Mount, chapter 10, in Jem (and Sam), New York: Carroll & Graf, page 397. From the entry bellows
  • Golden wattle, on the other hand, that capricious, fluffy-dusty do-gooder of a plant, will produce an entirely different result.2018, Robbie Arnott, Flames, Text Publishing, published 2023, page 56. From the entry golden wattle
  • Asked if she was surprised when Svetlana redefected, Sinyavsky's wife was quoted as saying "Princesses are always capricious.2015, Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin's Daughter, →ISBN, page 563. From the entry redefect
  • He felt Billings overedited him and made capricious changes.2012, Robert Goldsborough, The Missing Chapter, →ISBN. From the entry overedit
  • It lays foundation for a society where rule of law has primary and not arbitrary or capricious exercise of power.2008, Colin Gonsalves, Vijay Hiremath, Rebecca Gonsalvez, editors, Prisoners' Rights, volume 2, Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) (A…. From the entry dictionarily
  • By that sect the devils were thought cruel, revengeful, capricious, and only able to be appeased by blood sacrifices and devil-dancing.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 33. From the entry devil dancing
  • The science of echometry is a capricious science.1917 November, Bernard Capes, “La Morgue Littéraire”, in William Makepeace Thackeray, editor, The Cornhill Magazine, volume 43, number…. From the entry echometry
  • Destroying flowers with a Daisy, she served notice that she was not to be manacled, not even by a necklace: she was our capricious, whirligig Lill-of-the-Hill.1980, Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, Alfred A.Knopf, published 1981, →ISBN, page 179. From the entry Evelyn
  • Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment.1957, William O. Douglas, Roth v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States, pages 354 U.S. 476, 512. From the entry freedom of expression
  • A genuinely educative experience, then, one in which instruction is conveyed and ability increased, is contradistinguished from a routine activity on one hand, and a capricious activity on the other.1916, John Dewey, Democracy and Education. From the entry contradistinguish

Meaning of capricious

  1. adjective Impulsive and unpredictable; determined by chance, impulse, or whim.

Full definition of capricious

Questions about capricious in a sentence

How do you use capricious in a sentence?
Capricious is used as an adjective. For example: “I almost died in a capricious winter storm.”
What is a short sentence with capricious?
“I almost died in a capricious winter storm.”
What does capricious mean?
Capricious means impulsive and unpredictable; determined by chance, impulse, or whim.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: capricious (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use capricious in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/capricious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.