Caprice

When we speak of a capricious girl (and this is a term that is quite unfairly applied primarily to females), who would think that we were calling her a goat? Latin caper meant “goat,” and Italian still has capro, capra, male and female goat, respectively. We have kept the idea of a goat’s style of jumping around, as you can see the mountain goat doing above, in our word “caper.” In our words “caprice” and “capricious,” we think of a girl’s changeableness. The invaluable Wilfred Funk quotes Thomas DeQuincey as describing female caprices thus:
“Everywhere I observe in the feminine mind something of a beautiful caprice, a floral
exuberance of that charming wilfulness which characterizes our dear human sisters, I
fear, through all the world.”
Stow it, Thom. Men can be just as capricious as women, but then we call them bullies. Hmm. There is a certain livestock motif going on here... to be continued.