/kəˈpriːs/
[noun] A sudden change of mood or mind, made without any obvious reason. A caprice is an impulsive decision or a sudden desire that does not follow any logical plan.
Caprice may come from the Italian word for 'hedgehog' — the animal's spiky, unpredictable nature once described a head standing on end in fright.
The story of 'caprice' begins in 16th-century Italy, with the word 'capriccio'. This Italian word is believed to be a blend of two elements: 'capo', meaning 'head', and 'riccio', meaning 'hedgehog'. The image behind the word was vivid and physical — a person so startled or seized by a sudden impulse that the hair on their head stood up as stiff as a hedgehog's spines. From this strange, almost comical picture of alarm, the word evolved to describe any sudden, irrational whim or shiver of fancy.
In Italian, 'capriccio' was used both for a sudden fright and, more broadly, for any impulsive or unpredictable act. The word quickly found a comfortable home in the world of the arts, where it described musical or artistic works that followed no strict rules — pieces that seemed to leap from idea to idea on a whim. This artistic usage gave us the word 'capriccio' in music, a free-form composition full of energy and surprise.
From Italian, the word passed into French as 'caprice' in the 16th century, keeping its sense of a sudden, unexplained impulse. French writers and thinkers embraced the word enthusiastically, using it to describe the unpredictable turns of fortune, of personality, and of nature itself. French was, at this time, the great carrier of Italian Renaissance ideas into northern Europe, and 'caprice' travelled that well-worn road.
English borrowed 'caprice' directly from French 'caprice' in the mid-17th century. Writers such as John Dryden used it to describe the unreliable, changeable behaviour of people and things. The word fitted neatly into English because it described something English speakers had always experienced but had no single, elegant word for — that sudden, sourceless urge to do something unexpected.
Interestingly, some scholars have also suggested a link to 'capra', the Latin word for 'goat', which was often associated with lively, leaping, unpredictable movement. Whether or not this connection is direct, it points to a broader family of words rooted in animal imagery. The related word 'caper' — meaning a playful skip or a bold, reckless act — shares this goat-like energy, coming from Italian 'capriola', a goat's leap, which itself comes from Latin 'caper', meaning 'male goat'. So 'caprice' sits within a lively cluster of words all linked to the idea of sudden, bounding, animal unpredictability.
Today, 'caprice' carries a slightly sophisticated, even elegant tone. We use it to describe the whims of powerful people, the unexpected shifts of weather or fate, and those private, unexplainable desires that suddenly overtake us. It has lost none of its original strangeness — the image of a startled head, hair bristling like a hedgehog, still lives quietly inside this polished, well-travelled word.