This week’s theme
Words coined after animals

This week’s words
doryphore
ratty
pullulate
winkle
capriole


This week’s comments
AWADmail 690

Next week’s theme
Words about words

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(KAP-ree-ol)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A playful leap: caper.
2. A leap made by a trained horse involving a backward kick of the hind legs at the top of the leap.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Middle French capriole (caper) or Italian capriola (leap), from Latin capreolus (goat), diminutive of caper (goat). Earliest documented use: 1580.

USAGE:

“This new book, the fattest so far, has a good many such rash half-caprioles of wit.”
Frank Kermode; Hip Gnosis; The Guardian (London, UK); Oct 12, 2002.

“Spectators can watch a horse smaller than 34 inches tall do tricks such as a capriole, an upward leap combined with a backward kick of the hind feet.”
Martha Ellen; Miniature Horses Featured at Gouverneur & St. Lawrence County Fair; McClatchy-Tribune Business News (Washington, DC); Aug 6, 2011.

See more usage examples of capriole in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: