Capricious
[kə'prɪʃəs]
Definition
(adj.) 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' .
(adj.) changeable; 'a capricious summer breeze'; 'freakish weather' .
Typist: Paul--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) Governed or characterized by caprice; apt to change suddenly; freakish; whimsical; changeable.
Checked by Jean
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Whimsical, fanciful, fantastical, crotchety, humorsome, wayward, odd, queer, fitful, freakish, very changeable.
Editor: Moll
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Wayward, uncertain, fanciful, freakish, fitful, fickle, changeful, whimsical,humorsome, inconstant, crotchety
ANT:Firm, unchanging, inflexible, decided, unswerving, constant
Checker: Vernon
Examples
- She grew capricious; her gentle conduct towards him was exchanged for asperity and repulsive coldness. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so hard to touch, so hard to turn! Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Hence it appeals to thought; it demands that an idea of an end be steadily maintained, so that activity cannot be either routine or capricious. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- What mean these fellows by their capricious insolence? Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- I am afraid I have been very complaining, and very capricious. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- How anxious and capricious she would have been, and what a hard task the best of dressmakers would have found it to please her! Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- I said you were capricious. Fergus Hume. The Island of Fantasy.
- You are not capricious, but true, loving, and charming beyond expression—a very woman, whom I love, and who loves me in return. Fergus Hume. The Island of Fantasy.
- As matter of fact, the native activities develop, in contrast with random and capricious exercise, through the uses to which they are put. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Wherefore the night is empty of singing to me: Lean from your lattice, capricious one, And I will sing the strain of the nightingale to the rose. Fergus Hume. The Island of Fantasy.
- It is equally fatal to an aim to permit capricious or discontinuous action in the name of spontaneous self-expression. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Such action is essentially capricious, and leads to capricious habits. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Your sex is capricious, you know. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- For many years, she kept up a capricious, fitful sort of correspondence. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- The opposites, once more, to thoughtful action are routine and capricious behavior. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Yet are you not capricious, sir? Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- We must, as I think, treat those capricious men as we find them. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- Are you capricious? Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Well, you are capricious at times. Fergus Hume. The Island of Fantasy.
- He conducted himself in quite an unconventional fashion, and seemed to follow the last thought that suggested itself to his capricious brain. Fergus Hume. The Island of Fantasy.
- Now Mr. Casaubon had been deprived of that superiority (as anything more than a remembrance) in a sudden, capricious manner. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- For what is more capricious than human actions? David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
- And then with silly flourish (what so capricious and childish as despair? Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- The exception to the imagination, as being more capricious and uncertain. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
- Graham says you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet you are excellent; we both think so. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- She remembered the chemist's warning against increasing the dose; and she had heard before of the capricious and incalculable action of the drug. Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Before my eyes he grows suspicious, capricious, hard, tyrannical, unjust. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- They say Fortune is a woman and capricious. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
Checker: Vernon