caracole
Americannoun
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a half turn executed by a horse and rider.
-
Rare. a winding staircase.
verb (used without object)
noun
-
dressage a half turn to the right or left
-
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
We are to halt two days here, and before that is over, I hope you'll have made your last caracole in the riding-school of Nancy.'
From Maurice Tiernay Soldier of Fortune by Lever, Charles James
The dignified and stern headmaster was actually seen to dandle infants and to caracole upon the hearthrug on all fours.
From Eminent Victorians by Strachey, Giles Lytton
When she found herself alone, she let her pony prance and caracole under a great pear-tree, and inwardly chafed against Anton.
From Debit and Credit Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag by Freytag, Gustav
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
Angel and I followed closely with occasional caracoles, and cavortings, and scornful blowings through the nostrils.
From Explorers of the Dawn by Morley, Christopher
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 MacDonald, George
He is drily humorous as he shows us some plumaged General peacocking on foot, or swelling with Napoleonic pride as he caracoles by on his horse.
From Promenades of an Impressionist by Huneker, James
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
Shot-bags, flasks, and powder-horns were distributed about, while three brace of dogs caracoled round the room, and increased the uproar.
From Jack Hinton The Guardsman by Lever, Charles James
Beyond the village, on the opposite hill, a white Arab charger caracoled, a red cloak gleamed.
From The Desert Drum 1905 by Hichens, Robert Smythe
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
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 Lever, Charles James
Several other notables of Losnitza, similarly broidered and accoutred, and mounted on caracoling horses, accompanied us; and we formed a cavalcade that would have astonished even Mr. Batty.
From Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844. by Paton, Andrew Archibald
We think it is his strength, his intensity that sends him caracoling on a dozen different roads in search of salvation.
From Ivory Apes and Peacocks by Huneker, James
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.
