capon
Americannoun
-
capons
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of capon
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English capun, from Latin capōn- (stem of capō ) “castrated cock”; akin to Greek kóptein “to cut,” Old Church Slavonic skopiti “to castrate”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
From the Renaissance up to the late nineteenth century, one finds many cookbooks that suggest covering boiled meat, especially poultry such as duck or capon, with macaroni or filled pasta.
From Salon ● Jan. 4, 2023
He’d be the person to ask what was going on with Buster Scruggs’ calculating capon, as playwright David Mamet explained to the New Yorker in 1993:
From Slate ● Dec. 10, 2018
On second thought, this could be the year of the capon.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2017
There were blancmanges of lobster and capon; of pike, carp and haddock.
From New York Times ● Oct. 29, 2015
There was hot bread and fresh-churned butter, a thick beef soup, capon and carrots, and peaches in honey.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
“Isn’t it strange that the only people who eat capons are sixteenth-century courtiers and twenty-first-century Brooklyn hipsters?” a publisher in his thirties, at the Susan B. Anthony setting, observed as he chewed.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 21, 2018
The reburial of Richard's father was accompanied by three sung masses and a banquet where guests dined on capons, cygnets, herons and rabbits.
From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2013
The great cartoon fowls — Daffy Duck above all, of course, but also Donald and Daisy and Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk — were capering capons safe from human predation.
From Time ● Oct. 31, 2013
Meanwhile, the years of superstardom were limited, because castrati tended to age badly: "Most of them become as big and fat as capons, with round and chubby hips, rumps, arms and throats."
From Slate ● Nov. 9, 2009
He helped the unfortunate King to two or three capons, and the latter sat down miserably at the end of the table, trying to swallow a few bits of them.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
