Capricious

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Capricious \Ca*pri"cious\ (k[.a]*pr[i^]sh"[u^]s), a. [Cf. F.
     capricieux, It. capriccioso.]
     Governed or characterized by caprice; apt to change suddenly;
     freakish; whimsical; changeable. "Capricious poet." --Shak.
     "Capricious humor." --Hugh Miller.
     [1913 Webster]


  
           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.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  capricious
       adj 1: changeable; "a capricious summer breeze"; "freakish weather"
              [syn: {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: {impulsive}, {whimsical}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  270 Moby Thesaurus words for "capricious":
     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