Also 6 capreall, 7 capreol, caprioll(e, (caprel), 7–8 capriol. [a. F. capriole (now cabriole) ‘a caper,’ or ad. It. capriola ‘a fawn, a kid, a young hind; also, a capriole or caper in dancing, also a Capriole or Goat’s leap that cunning riders teach their horses’ (Florio), dim. of capra she-goat:—L. capra: cf. caprea, capreolus, applied to wild goats, etc.]
1. A leap or caper, as in dancing.
1594. Davies, Orchestra, in Arb., Garner, V. 40. With lofty turns and caprioles in the air.
1630. B. Jonson, Chloridia, Wks. (1692), 657/2. Ixion … does nothing but cut capreols, fetch friskals, and lead lavoltaes with the Lamiæ.
1760. Foote, Minor, I. (1781), 15. Italy [has] equip’d him with capriols and cantatas.
1832–4. De Quincey, Caesars (1862), IX. 107. All possible evolutions of caprioles and pirouettes.
fig. 1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, III. ii. 225. His heeles doe caper … His very soule, his intellectual Is nothing but a mincing capreall.
a. 1670. Hacket, Cent. Serm. (1675), 326. In the Capreols of our own fancy.
1852. Hawthorne, Blithedale Rom., ix. Permitting no caprioles of fancy.
2. Horsemanship. A high leap made by a horse without advancing, the hind legs being jerked out together at the height of the leap.
c. 1605. Montgomerie, Flyting, 509. While ky kest caprels behind with their heeles.
1617. Markham, Caval., II. 239. That sault which … Italians call Caprioll, and wee heere in England the Goates leape.
a. 1634. Randolph, To Mr. I. S., 7, in Poems (1640), 131.
| Thy Pegasus in his admir’d careere, | |
| Curvets no Capreols of nonsence here. |
1814. Scott, Wav., viii. The occasional caprioles which his charger exhibited.
1884. E. L. Anderson, Horsemanship, II. xvii. 153. The Capriole, the most vigorous of all the school movements.
3. A kind of head-dress worn by ladies.
1756. Connoisseur, No. 112 (1774), IV. 58. The milliner told me … that the name of this ornament … was a Capriole or Cabriole.
1864. in Webster.
