Adjacent Words

Capricious definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CAPRICIOUS, a. Freakish; whimsical; apt to change opinions suddenly, or to start from ones purpose; unsteady; changeable; fickle; fanciful; subject to change or irregularity; as a man of a capricious temper.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: changeable; "a capricious summer breeze"; "freakish weather" [syn: capricious, freakish]
2: determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason; "a capricious refusal"; "authoritarian rulers are frequently capricious"; "the victim of whimsical persecutions" [syn: capricious, impulsive, whimsical]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 1601 governed or characterized by caprice ; impulsive, unpredictable Synonyms: see inconstant • capriciously adverb • capriciousness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 guided by or given to caprice. 2 irregular, unpredictable. Derivatives: capriciously adv. capriciousness n. Etymology: F capricieux f. It. CAPRICCIOSO

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Capricious Ca*pri"cious, a. [Cf. F. capricleux, It. capriccioso.] Governed or characterized by caprice; apt to change suddenly; freakish; whimsical; changeable. ``Capricious poet.'' --Shak. ``Capricious humor.'' --Hugh Miller. A capricious partiality to the Romish practices. --Hallam. Syn: Freakish; whimsical; fanciful; fickle; crotchety; fitful; wayward; changeable; unsteady; uncertain; inconstant; arbitrary. -- Ca*pri"cious*ly, adv. -- Ca*pri"cious*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Someone who is capricious often changes their mind unexpectedly. The Union accused Walesa of being capricious and undemocratic. = fickle ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Whimsical, fanciful, fantastical, crotchety, humorsome, wayward, odd, queer, fitful, freakish, changeable, uncertain, fickle, variable.

Moby Thesaurus

adrift, afloat, agnostic, aimless, alternating, ambiguous, ambitendent, ambivalent, amorphous, arbitrary, at loose ends, brittle, broken, careening, careless, casual, catchy, chancy, changeable, changeful, changing, choppy, corruptible, cranky, crotchety, deciduous, desultory, deviable, deviating, deviative, deviatory, dicey, different, disarticulated, disconnected, discontinuous, disjunct, disordered, disorderly, dispersed, disproportionate, divaricate, divergent, diversified, diversiform, dizzy, double-minded, doubting, dubious, dying, eccentric, effervescent, ephemeral, equivocal, erose, erratic, evanescent, fading, fanciful, fantasied, fantastic, fast and loose, fence-sitting, fence-straddling, fickle, fitful, flaky, fleeting, flickering, flighty, flitting, fluctuant, fluctuating, fly-by-night, flying, formless, fragile, frail, freakish, frivolous, fugacious, fugitive, giddy, gratuitous, guttering, halting, haphazard, harebrained, heedless, herky-jerky, hesitant, hesitating, heteroclite, hit-or-miss, humorsome, iffy, immethodical, impermanent, impetuous, impulsive, inadvertent, incalculable, inchoate, incoherent, inconsiderate, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indemonstrable, indiscriminate, infirm, infirm of purpose, insubstantial, intermittent, intermitting, irregular, irresolute, irresolved, irresponsible, jagged, jerky, kinky, lubricious, lurching, maggoty, mazy, meaningless, mercurial, misshapen, momentary, moody, mortal, motiveless, motley, mugwumpian, mugwumpish, mutable, nonconformist, nondurable, nonpermanent, nonstandard, nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic, nonuniform, notional, of two minds, orderless, passing, patchy, perishable, petulant, planless, pluralistic, polysemous, promiscuous, quirky, ragged, rambling, random, reasonless, restless, rough, roving, scatterbrained, scrappy, senseless, shapeless, shifting, shifty, short-lived, shuffling, skeptical, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, spastic, spineless, sporadic, spotty, staggering, straggling, straggly, systemless, temperamental, temporal, temporary, thoughtless, ticklish, touch-and-go, transient, transitive, transitory, unaccountable, unarranged, uncalculating, uncertain, unclassified, unconfirmable, uncontrolled, unconvinced, undecided, undependable, undetermined, undirected, undisciplined, undivinable, undurable, unenduring, unequable, unequal, uneven, unfixed, unforeseeable, ungraded, unguarded, unjoined, unmethodical, unmetrical, unordered, unorganized, unorthodox, unpersuaded, unpredictable, unprovable, unreasonable, unreasoning, unreflecting, unregular, unreliable, unresolved, unrestrained, unrhythmical, unsettled, unsorted, unstable, unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, unsure, unsymmetrical, unsystematic, unthinking, unthoughtful, ununiform, unverifiable, vacillating, vagarious, vagrant, vague, variable, variegated, variform, various, varying, veering, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatile, wandering, wanton, wavering, wavery, wavy, wayward, whimsical, wishy-washy, wobbling, wobbly