cut capers

Idioms  

1. Also, cut a caper. Frolic or romp, as in The children cut capers in the pile of raked leaves. The noun caper comes from the Latin for “goat,” and the allusion is to act in the manner of a young goat clumsily frolicking about. The expression was first recorded in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (1:3): “Faith, I can cut a caper.”

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Example Sentences

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cut capers

Some bartenders in Yokohama and Kobe dress up on Christmas night like Santa Claus, serve drinks, cut capers.

From Time Magazine Archive

On this broad platform the infant publication immediately began to cut capers.

From Time Magazine Archive

But the social development of peoples does not cut capers, nor does it perpetrate any such false reasonings in a circle; it takes its course obedient to imminent laws.

From Woman under socialism by Daniel De Leon

The performers were all humorous, frisky fellows, who loved to cut capers in private life; but as soon as they were arranged for the dance, they conducted themselves like so many mutes at a funeral.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 2 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

It is Carnival in New Orleans; a brilliant Tuesday in February, when the very air effervesces an ozone intensely exhilarating—of a nature half spring, half winter—to make one long to cut capers.

From Violets and Other Tales by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson

Related Words

• cavort
• frolic
• gambol
• prance