caper

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪpɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪpə/
• Rhymes: -eɪpə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: ca‧per

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Clipping of capriole.

caper (plural capers)

1. A playful leap or jump.
2. A jump while dancing.
3. A prank or practical joke.
4. (usually in the plural) Playful behaviour.
5. (figuratively) A crime, especially an elaborate heist, or a narrative about such a crime.
   • 2022, Jennifer Egan, “i, the Protagonist”, in The Candy House:

     His caper had failed to find a comic resolution. Instead, there had been a genre switch, and the madcap adventure had turned serious. Or had this bleakness underlain the caper from the start?

   • 2025 April 9, Lucy Knight, “Thomas Pynchon announces Shadow Ticket, his first novel in more than a decade”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The elusive 87-year-old author’s new book is a noir caper set during the big band era following a detective in search of a cheese heiress[.]

• cab
• caprine

caper (third-person singular simple present capers, present participle capering, simple past and past participle capered)

1. To leap or jump about in a sprightly or playful manner.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury’s hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.

2. To jump as part of a dance.
3. To engage in playful behaviour.

From Latin capparis, from Ancient Greek κάππαρις (kápparis).

caper (plural capers)

1. The pungent grayish green flower bud of the European and Oriental caper (Capparis spinosa), which is pickled and eaten.

   Synonym: caperberry

2. A plant of the genus Capparis.

   Synonyms: caper bush, caper tree, caperberry

• caper on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed from Dutch kaper.

caper (plural capers)

2. A vessel formerly used by the Dutch; privateer.

Shortening of capercaillie.

caper (plural capers)

1. (Scotland) The capercaillie.

• north-caper

• Pacer, crape, pacer, recap

From English cap +‎ -er.

• IPA^(key): /ka.pe/

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

caper

1. (finance) to cap (set a limit to)
2. (sports) to cap (award a player a cap for playing for their national team)

Blend of cari (“seeking”) +‎ perhatian (“attention”), from calque of English attention-seeking.

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃapər/ [ˈt͡ʃa.pər]
• Rhymes: -apər
• Syllabification: ca‧per

capêr (comparative lebih caper, superlative paling caper)

1. (colloquial) attention-seeking

• “caper”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

From Proto-Italic *kapros, from Proto-Indo-European *kápros (“buck, he-goat”). Cognate with Ancient Greek κάπρος (kápros, “boar”), Proto-Germanic *hafraz (“he-goat”), and Proto-Iranian *káfrah (“young goat, kid”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈka.pɛr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkaː.per]

caper m (genitive caprī, feminine capra); second declension

1. he-goat (a male goat, a billy goat)

   Synonyms: buccus, hircus

Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -er).

• “caper”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “caper”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “caper”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “caper”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “caper”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray

Borrowed from Latin capere.

caper

1. to seize

• Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

caper m

1. indefinite plural of cape

Borrowed from Italian cappero.

caper m (plural caperi)

1. caper (a plant)

caper

1. indefinite plural of cape