capon
Americannoun
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:
It may have started with the cockentrice, a monstrosity made by stitching together the head and upper torso of a pig with a capon, found on feast menus from the fifteenth century.
From Salon ● Nov. 16, 2021
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
Mr Hoover once described his ouster Mr Roosevelt as a "chameleon in plaid" while FDR called his predecessor a "fat, timid capon".
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2016
"I've got my eye on a plump crisp capon to sup on tonight. We'll share it, me and you. You'll like that."
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
In Shakespeare, capons are an indulgence - they are a favourite of Sir John Falstaff , and in The Two Gentlemen of Verona Launce's dog Crab steals a capon-leg from Sylvia's table.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2016
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
Parisian cousins nobody has heard from in decades now write letters begging for capons, hams, hens.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
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.
