caper

caper¹ plant, pickled bud

Etymology

The word for the plant is inherited from Middle English caperis, also capres,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin capparis,^[2][5][3][4] which is from Ancient Greek κάππαρις (kápparis, “the caper plant or its fruit”), of unknown or uncertain origin.^[5][4][6] The final -s was taken for a plural ending and dropped, so that the singular is a back-formation.^[3][2][4][7] Barnhart finds the form without -s before 1398,^[6] while Hoad, Ayto and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the loss to the 16th century.^[7][8][9] Those three also bring the word through French câpres,^[7][8][9] and Barnhart and Etymonline suggest that it may have been borrowed a second time in the 16th century, about 1551 in Barnhart, from Middle French câpre and Italian cappero.^[6][5] The Latin word is the source of those forms and of German Kaper.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The shrub: before 1382, in the Wycliffite Bible,^[2][6] whose Ecclesiastes 12:5 reads "The erbe caperis shal be scatered".^[10]

Semantic evolution

The English word named the shrub first;^[2] Trevisa has it before 1398.^[6] The flower buds gathered for pickling are recorded from the 1480s, in the Howard household accounts, usually in the plural.^[2] Johnson (1755) defines the noun simply as "an acid pickle".^[11] From 1693 the name was passed on to substitutes: English capers and Capucine capers were the seed vessels of the nasturtium or of the caper spurge,^[2] and in Yorkshire, Warwickshire, East Anglia and the Isle of Wight the caper spurge itself was the caper-plant or caper-bush, its fruit being pickled in the same way.^[12] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records the name for the marsh marigold,^[3] and the OED for a scented tea, from 1864.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1382 – caperis, the shrub.^[2][6]
• before 1398 – capar, without the final -s.^[6]
• 1481–90 – the flower buds, for pickling.^[2]
• 1693 – Capucine capers, English capers, seed vessels of other plants.^[2]
• 1864 – a kind of scented tea.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A low prickly Mediterranean shrub, Capparis spinosa, or another plant of its genus.^[3][2]
2. Usually in the plural, the immature flower buds of this shrub, pickled and used as a condiment: He scattered capers over the baked fish.^[3][2][13]
3. The pickled seed vessels of other plants, such as the nasturtium or the caper spurge.^[2][14]
4. The marsh marigold.^[3]
5. A kind of scented tea.^[2]

Word family

• bean caper
• caper spurge

caper² frolicsome leap

Etymology

The frolicsome leap is probably a shortening from English capriole,^{[3][13][2][5][6][7][8]} and Merriam-Webster Unabridged adds some alteration.^[3] Florio already glossed Italian capriola as "a capriole or caper in dancing", and the OED compares the shortening of cab from cabriolet.^[2] The English verb capriole, recorded from 1580, is from the noun or directly from capriolare (“to caper”);^[2] the noun is from French capriole, now cabriole, or from the Italian noun.^[2][8] Most dictionaries take the Italian words from capriolo (“roebuck”),^[8][6][7][9] from Latin capreolus (“roebuck, wild goat”), a diminutive of caper (“goat”),^[8][7][9][3] from Proto-Indo-European *kap-ro- (“he-goat, buck”),^[5] cognate with Old English hæfer and Old Norse hafr;^[5][3] the OED instead makes capriola a diminutive of capra (“she-goat”).^[2] Johnson and Dictionary.com go straight to the Latin goat without capriole.^[11][15] Barnhart and Etymonline derive the noun from the verb,^[6][5] while the OED shortens the noun and the verb of capriole separately.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To dance or leap playfully: 1588, in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster,^[6][3] though the OED dates its quotation from that play 1598 and has an earlier one of before 1593, of a singer.^[2] The noun, a playful leap or skip, is recorded from 1592, in R. Greene.^[2][2][6][3]

Semantic evolution

The first uses are of dancing and of prancing horses,^[2] in keeping with the goat behind the word.^[16][17] To cut a caper, to dance in a frolicsome way, is in Twelfth Night,^[2] and to cut a caper on nothing meant to be hanged.^[2] Johnson (1755) still knew only a leap, jump or skip, and quotes Swift's treasurer Flimnap, who cuts a caper on the rope.^[11] A figurative "fantastic proceeding" led on to an activity or pursuit of any kind, including a "game" or dodge, by 1839,^[2] and to a prank by 1840.^[5][6] Word Origins thinks the sense of an illicit or absurd activity began in the underworld,^[16] and Green's Dictionary of Slang has caper, a dodge or trick, in British slang from the 1840s.^[18] The sense "crime" followed in 1926,^[5] and a verb, to commit crimes, in American thieves' talk by 1969.^[18] In Australia the noun can mean a job or a person's behaviour,^[13] and English and Scots dialects used it for a game, spree or trick.^[12]

Timeline

• 1588 – verb, to leap or dance playfully.^[6][3]
• 1592 – noun, a playful leap.^[2][6][3]
• before 1593 – verb, of a singer or singing bird.^[2]
• before 1616 – to cut a caper.^[2] Etymonline dates it to about 1600.^[5]
• 1839 – any activity or pursuit; a dodge.^[2]
• 1840 – a prank.^[5][6]
• 1926 – a crime.^[5]
• 1969 – verb, to commit a crime, especially as a professional thief.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A playful skip or leap: The foal gave a little caper and ran back to its mother.^[13][3][2]
2. A high-spirited escapade or prank.^[13][3]
3. An activity or pursuit.^[3][2]
4. (slang) A crime, especially an organized robbery.^[13][3][5]
5. (Australian, informal) A job or occupation; a person's behaviour.^[13]
6. cut a caper, cut capers: to skip about, or to behave playfully.^[13][2]

Verb

1. To leap or dance about in a light-hearted way: The children capered round the bonfire.^[13][3][2]
2. (US slang) To commit a crime.^[18]

Word family

• caperer
• caperingly
• outcaper