different between caprice vs conceit

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French caprice, from Italian capriccio, from caporiccio (“fright, sudden start”): capo (“head”), from Latin caput + riccio (“curly”), from Latin ?ricius (“hedgehog”), or from Italian capro (“goat”). Doublet of capriccio.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /k??p?is/

Noun

caprice (plural caprices)

1. An impulsive, seemingly unmotivated action, change of mind, or notion; a whim.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)
2. A brief romance
   • Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

     The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that a caprice lasts a little longer.

3. An unpredictable or sudden condition, change, or series of changes.
   • 1931, H. P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness, chapter 6:

     After that we cast off all allegiance to immediate, tangible, and time-touched things, and entered a fantastic world of hushed unreality in which the narrow, ribbon-like road rose and fell and curved with an almost sentient and purposeful caprice amidst the tenantless green peaks and half-deserted valleys

4. A disposition to be impulsive.
5. (music) A capriccio.

Related terms

• capricious

Translations

French

Etymology

From Italian capriccio.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.p?is/

Noun

caprice m (plural caprices)

1. whim; wish

   Synonym: lubie
2. tantrum

Derived terms

• capricieux

Descendants

• ? Danish: kaprice
• ? English: caprice
• ? Romanian: capriciu

Further reading

• “caprice” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Alternative forms

• conceipt (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English conceyte, formed from conceyven by analogy with pairs such as (Modern English) deceive~deceit, receive~receipt etc. Doublet of concept and concetto.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?n?si?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Noun

conceit (countable and uncountable, plural conceits)

1. (obsolete) Something conceived in the mind; an idea, a thought. [14th–18th c.]
   • 1611, King James Version, Proverbs 26:12

     a man wise in his own conceit
2. The faculty of conceiving ideas; mental faculty; apprehension.
   • c. 1590, Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

     How often, alas! did her eyes say unto me that they loved! and yet I, not looking for such a matter, had not my conceit open to understand them.

3. Quickness of apprehension; active imagination; lively fancy.
4. (obsolete) Opinion, (neutral) judgment. [14th–18th c.]
5. (now rare, dialectal) Esteem, favourable opinion. [from 15th c.]
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Letter 345:

     [G]ive him thy thanks for putting her into conceit with the sex that thou hast given her so much reason to execrate.

6. (countable) A novel or fanciful idea; a whim. [from 16th c.]
   • 1679, John Dryden, The Essay on Satire

     Tasso […] is full of conceits […] which are not only below the dignity of heroic verse but contrary to its nature.

   • 2012, Lauren Elkin, Scott Esposito, The End of Oulipo?: An attempt to exhaust a movement

     The book's main conceit is to make poetry from univocal words (words containing just one vowel) […]

8. (countable, rhetoric, literature) An ingenious expression or metaphorical idea, especially in extended form or used as a literary or rhetorical device. [from 16th c.]

   Coordinate terms: metaphor, simile, concetto
9. (uncountable) Overly high self-esteem; vain pride; hubris. [from 17th c.]
   • 1826, Nathaniel Cotton, Fables

     Plum'd with conceit he calls aloud.

10. Design; pattern.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

conceit (third-person singular simple present conceits, present participle conceiting, simple past and past participle conceited)

1. (obsolete) To form an idea; to think.
   • 1643: John Milton, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

     Those whose […] vulgar apprehensions conceit but low of matrimonial purposes.

2. (obsolete, transitive) To conceive.

   • The strong, by conceiting themselves weak, are therebly rendered as inactive […] as if they really were so.

   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.23:

     That owls and ravens are ominous appearers, and presignifying unlucky events, as Christians yet conceit, was also an augurial conception.

Further reading

• conceit in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• conceit in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• conceit at OneLook Dictionary Search

Middle English

Noun

conceit

1. Alternative form of conceyte