caper

英文词源

caper

caper: Caper ‘jump about’ [16] and the edible caper [15] are two different words. The former is a shortening of capriole ‘leap’, now obsolete except as a technical term in horsemanship, which comes via early French capriole from Italian capriola, a derivative of the verb capriolare ‘leap’, which in turn was formed from capriolo ‘roebuck’; its ultimate source was Latin capreolus, a diminutive form of caper ‘goat’ (whence the English astrological term Capricorn, literally ‘goat’s horn’). (The French by-form cabrioler was the source of English cab.) Caper ‘edible bud’ came via French câpres and Latin capparis from Greek kápparis; the earliest English form was capres, but this came to be misinterpreted as a plural, and the -s was dropped from the singular in the 16th century.
=> cab, capricorn, capriole

caper (v.)

1580s, apparently short for obsolete capriole "to leap, skip," probably from Italian capriolare "jump in the air" (see cab). Related: Capered; capering.

caper (n.1)

type of prickly Mediterranean bush, also in reference to the plant's edible buds, late 14c., from Latin capparis (source of Italian cappero, French câpre, German Kaper), from Greek kapparis "the caper plant or its fruit," which is of uncertain origin. Arabic kabbar, Persian kabar are from Greek. Perhaps reborrowed into English 16c. The final -s was mistaken for a plural inflection in English and dropped.

caper (n.2)

by 1590s, "playful leap or jump," from caper (v.); meaning "prank" is from 1840; that of "crime" is from 1926. To cut capers "dance in a frolicsome way" is from c. 1600.