caracole
Americannoun
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caracoles
plural
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a half turn executed by a horse and rider.
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Rare. a winding staircase.
verb (used without object)
noun
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dressage a half turn to the right or left
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a spiral staircase
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of caracole
1650–60; < French < Spanish caracol snail, spiral shell or stair, turning movement (of a horse)
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:
The crude might of the queen was transformed into refined power, restrained and directed by a system of sparkling levers; the pawns grew cleverer; the knights stepped forth with a Spanish caracole .
From Time Magazine Archive
He began to rear and caracole as if he were about to suffer transformation into a colt.
From Time Magazine Archive
Ultimately some horsemen in the escort of Ariovistus began to caracole towards the Romans, and to hurl at them stones and darts.
From A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1 by M. (François) Guizot
Wych Hazel bowed—remembering with some amusement Mr. Rollo's caracole on the former occasion all about Mrs. Coles.
From Wych Hazel by Susan Warner
Peggy was waving her hand—her hat had flown off at the first caracole, and Rita had ridden over it several times—and shouting in jubilation.
From Three Margarets by Etheldred B. (Etheldred Breeze) Barry
The waiter prodded the table to try caracoles, or snails, eaten by pushing a toothpick into the shell and dragging out the body.
From New York Times ● Jul. 15, 2011
But for $20 she swindled out of the warden as she was leaving her latest penitentiary she is penniless, but she caracoles into town as the Countess of Auburn.
From Time Magazine Archive
The market-lady caracoles around, and leads Browne to infer that his conduct is not approved, from her festooning that gentleman's eyes with heavy lines of crape.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873 by Various
There it hums and caracoles, through the bottles and glasses; reckless what dangerous breakage and spilth it may occasion.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 05 by Thomas Carlyle
Still, whatever her caracoles or escapades, they caused Florimel nothing but amusement, for her confidence in Malcolm -- that he could do whatever he believed he could -- was unbounded.
From The Marquis of Lossie by George MacDonald
Above Beirut's Place des Canons last week R.A.F. planes roared and caracoled.
From Time Magazine Archive
In front of it, as the week went on, a thousand horses paraded, galloped, caracoled — black and grey, hunter and hackney, carriage-horse and teamster.
From Time Magazine Archive
Shadow’s mount caracoled away from it, and Shadow stroked its neck and told it not to be afraid.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
For them his horse caracoled on Stonefield's causeway, his shoulders straightened, and his bonnet rose.
From John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn by Neil Munro
The Captain of Vlaye, stooping his sinewy figure to his companion, well became a horse that moved as he moved, and caracoled because he allowed it.
From The Abbess Of Vlaye by Stanley J. Weyman
Prancing, caracoling or stiffly reined in, they constitute a lexicon of equine movement that Western art could hardly rival for another 1400 years.
From Time Magazine Archive
Of many existing causes for alarm, one minor one has been Author Louis Golding's caracoling cleverness, which has frightened away more than a few cautious readers.
From Time Magazine Archive
No doubt, my splendid Arab, caracoling as if he had not been out of the stable for a week, came in for a large share of the admiration.
From The Wild Huntress Love in the Wilderness by Mayne Reid
You see the one who looks about him so joyfully, and, holding his chestnut horse well in hand, comes caracoling up so bravely?
From The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I. by Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann
If it be a building speculation, the architecture is but the background of a brilliant "mall," where splendid equipages and caracoling riders figure, with gay parasols and sleek poodles intermixed.
From Davenport Dunn, Volume 1 (of 2) A Man Of Our Day by Charles James Lever
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.
