温馨提示：本站仅提供公开网络链接索引服务，不存储、不篡改任何第三方内容，所有内容版权归原作者所有
AI智能索引来源：http://www.wehd.com/13/Capricious.html
点击访问原文链接

Capricious. World English Historical Dictionary

进入原网站 导航首页
Capricious. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1893, rev. 2025. Capricious a. Also 7 -ichious, -itious. [ad. F. capricieux, ad. It. capriccioso (= Sp. caprichoso): see above. The by-form caprichious belongs to the corresp. forms of the sb.]

1   † 1.  Characterized by play of wit or fancy; humorous, fantastic, ‘conceited.’ Obs.

2 1594.  Carew, Huarte’s Exam. Wits, 153 (L.). The inventive wits are termed in the Tuscan tongue capricious (capriciuso) for the resemblance they bear to a goat, who takes no pleasure in the open and easy plains, but loves to caper along the hill-tops.

3 1600.  Shaks., A. Y. L., III. iii. 8. I am heere with thee, and thy Goats, as the most capricious Poet honest Ouid was among the Gothes.

4 1711.  Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), III. 142. The capricious Point, and Play of Words.

5   2.  Full of, subject to, or characterized by caprice; guided by whim or fancy rather than by judgment or settled purpose; whimsical, humorsome.

6 1605.  Camden, Rem., Epitaphes, 57. A friend of his that knew him to be Caprichious.

7 1644.  Eng. Tears, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), V. 450. The monstrous exorbitant liberty, that almost every capricious mechanick takes to himself.

8 1753.  Johnson, Adventurer, No. 111, ¶ 6. Our estimation of birth is arbitrary and capricious.

9 1833.  J. Rennie, Alph. Angling, 49. ‘We have known the salmon,’ says another intelligent writer, ‘as well as trout, so capricious, as often to prefer a fancy fly.’

10 1884.  Law Times Rep., L. 10 May, 325/1. The defendants’ refusal was not capricious, but a bonâ fide exercise of their judgment.

11   3.  transf. Of things: Subject to change or irregularity, so as to appear ungoverned by law.

12 1823.  Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. vii. (1865), 283. The capricious hues of the sea, shifting like the colours of a dying mullet.

13 1830.  Lyell, Princ. Geol. (1875), II. II. xlix. 617. The capricious distribution of coral reefs.

14 1874.  Helps, Soc. Press., vi. 75. The vicissitudes of a capricious climate.

15 1875.  Tait & Stewart, Unseen Univ., iv. § 118. 95. To give to the atoms a perfectly arbitrary and capricious side movement.

16 © 2025 WEHD.com

智能索引记录