{"id":20267,"date":"2026-08-26T15:54:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/?p=20267"},"modified":"2026-08-26T15:55:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:55:39","slug":"caprice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/caprice\/","title":{"rendered":"Caprice."},"content":{"rendered":"

I just learned an interesting bit of word history via Merriam-Webster’s delightfully discursive entry<\/a> for caprice<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Etymology<\/strong><\/p>\n

borrowed from French, going back to Middle French, borrowed from Italian capriccio<\/em> “whim, fancy,” earlier and medieval Tuscan caporiccio<\/em> “bristling of the hair with fear, shiver of horror, shudder,” probably from capo<\/em> “head” (going back to Vulgar Latin *capum<\/em>, re-formation of Latin caput<\/em> “head”) + riccio<\/em> “hedgehog,” going back to Latin \u0113r\u012bcius<\/em> \u2014 more at head entry 1<\/a>, urchin<\/a><\/p>\n

Note: Italian capriccio<\/em> has been a word of disputed origin, the principle issue being the peculiar semantic shift from “shiver of horror”\u2014a meaning easily explicable from the compound’s bases “head” and “hedgehog”\u2014to “whim, caprice,” and hence to various further senses. On these grounds M. Cortelazzo and P. Zolli (Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana<\/em>) consider the entire etymology uncertain, and speculate that two etyma of independent origin have somehow converged phonetically. Cortelazzo and Zolli state that the Sienese poet Cecco Angiolieri (died ca. 1312) used caporiccio<\/em> 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. With this use set aside, the sense “whim, fancy” is not attested before the sixteenth century according to the Lessico etimologico italiano<\/em> (vol. 9, column 1055), when the word was borrowed by French. The earlier meaning “shiver of horror,” first attested as a translation of Latin horror by the Florentine author Bono Giamboni (died ca. 1292), is apparently rare in Italian after the eighteenth century, but derivatives such as raccapricciarsi<\/em> “to be horrified,” raccapriccio<\/em> “horror, disgust,” are still current. The sense “whim, fancy” has suggested a connection with capra<\/em> “goat,” an animal stereotypically known for its sudden leaps (compare capriole<\/a>). The lexicographer Francesco Alunno, in Ricchezze della lingua volgare sopra il Boccaccio<\/em> (1543), notes both meanings of the word without attempting to reconcile them: “And a sudden and unreasoning inclination is called capriccio<\/em>, such as seems to come in the manner of goats, which all leap if one leaps. Likewise those shudders, shivers of cold that appear at the beginning of a still doubtful fever are called capricci<\/em>.” (“Et Capriccio si chiama un’ appetito subito et senza rasone, tale, qual pare che venga alle Capre; che se una salta tutte l’altre saltano. Item Capricci si chiamano quei ribrezzi, griccioli del gielo, che vengono nel principio della febre anchora incerta.”) Whatever its etymology, caporiccio<\/em>\/capriccio<\/em> is likely at least as old as the thirteenth century, given its rich attestation in dialects throughout the Italian peninsula, as documented in Lessico etimologico italiano<\/em>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love all the detail, but I note with extreme disapproval the use of “principle” in place of the correct “principal.” Where have all the copyeditors gone? (The OED’s 1888 entry adds no useful information in the etymology but does note “About 1700 \u02c8caprice<\/em> was a usual accentuation; Pope rhymed the word with vice<\/em>.”)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just learned an interesting bit of word history via Merriam-Webster’s delightfully discursive entry for caprice: Etymology borrowed 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20269,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20267\/revisions\/20269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}