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To leap or jump about in a sprightly manner; to cut capers; to skip; to spring; to prance; to dance. He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth. Shak.

See Capper, a plant, 2.

The small olive-shaped berry of the European and Oriental caper, said to be used in pickles and as a condiment.

northern Europe and formerly in Scotland; -- called also cock of the woods. [Written also capercaillie, capercaili.]

To treat with cruel playfulness, as a cat treats a mouse; to abuse. [Obs.] Birch.

One who capers, leaps, and skips about, or dances. The nimble capperer on the cord. Dryden.

A deciduous plant of warm climates, generally with fleshy leaves and flowers of a yellow or whitish yellow color, of the genus Zygophyllum.

One who escapes.

A grotesque trick; a piece of buffoonery; a caper. And fraught with antics as the Indian bird That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage. Wordsworth.

To prance; to caper. [Scot.] Jamieson.

To perform the canary dance; to move nimbly; to caper. [Obs.] But to jig of a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet. Shak. CANARY BIRD Ca*na"ry bird`. (Zoöl.)

A leap or caper, as in dancing. "With lofty turns and caprioles." Sir J. Davies.

ith so hard a carnosity. Spelman. The olives, indeed be very small there, and bigger than capers; yet commended they are for their carnosity. Holland.

o has overcrowed, or got the better of, rivals or competitors. -- Cock of the woods. See Capercailzie.

as a flourish made with a pen on paper, or with skates on the ice; a trick; a frolicsome caper. [Sometimes written carlicue.] [ Colloq. U.S.] To cut a curlycue, to make a flourish; to cut a caper. I gave a flourishing about the room and cut a curlycue with my right foot. McClintock.

solicitous to cut the shop whenever he can do so with impunity. Thomas Hamilton. To cut a caper. See under Caper. -- To cut the cards, to divide a pack of cards into portions, in order to determine the deal or the trump, or to change the cards to be dealt. -- To cut a dash or a figure, to make a display. [Colloq.] --…

To move nimbly or merrily; to express pleasure by motion; to caper; to frisk; to skip about. Then, 'tis time to dance off. Thackeray. More dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw. Shak. Shadows in the glassy waters dance. Byron. Where rivulets dance their wayward round. Wordsworth. To dance on a r…

A shrewd trick; an antic; a caper. To cut a dido, to play a trick; to cut a caper; -- perhaps so called from the trick of Dido, who having bought so much land as a hide would cover, is said to have cut it into thin strips long enough to inclose a spot for a citadel.

To frisk; to skip; to caper. [Obs. Scot.] "The flisking flies." Gosson.

A leap or caper. [Obs.] B. Jonson.