caprice

Note: Italian capriccio has been a word of disputed origin, the principle issue being the peculiar semantic shift from "shiver of horror"—a meaning easily explicable from the compound's bases "head" and "hedgehog"—to "whim, caprice," and hence to various further senses. On these grounds M. Cortelazzo and P. Zolli (Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana) consider the entire etymology uncertain, and speculate that two etyma of independent origin have somehow converged phonetically. Cortelazzo and Zolli state that the Sienese poet Cecco Angiolieri (died ca. 1312) used caporiccio in the sense "desire, wish" ("desiderio, voglia"), but in the sole occurrence of the word in the sonnets attributed to him, the meaning is actually far from clear. With this use set aside, the sense "whim, fancy" is not attested before the sixteenth century according to the Lessico etimologico italiano (vol. 9, column 1055), when it was borrowed by French. The earlier meaning "shiver of horror," first attested as a translation of Latin horror by the Florentine author Bono Giamboni (died ca. 1292), is apparently rare in Italian after the eighteenth century, but derivatives such as raccapricciarsi "to be horrified," raccapriccio "horror, disgust," are still current. The sense "whim, fancy" has suggested a connection with capra "goat," an animal stereotypically known for its sudden leaps (compare capriole). The lexicographer Francesco Alunno, in Ricchezze della lingua volgare sopra il Boccaccio (1543), notes both meanings of the word without attempting to reconcile them: "And a sudden and unreasoning inclination is called capriccio, such as seems to come in the manner of goats, which all leap if one leaps. Likewise those shudders, shivers of cold that appear at the beginning of a still doubtful fever are called capricci." ("Et Capriccio si chiama un' appetito subito et senza rasone, tale, qual pare che venga alle Capre; che se una salta tutte l'altre saltano. Item Capricci si chiamano quei ribrezzi, griccioli del gielo, che vengono nel principio della febre anchora incerta.") Whatever its etymology, caporiccio/capriccio is likely at least as old as the thirteenth century, given its rich attestation in dialects throughout the Italian peninsula, as documented in Lessico etimologico italiano.