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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From Time Magazine Archive

It maitters little what he putts on, hooiver, for he wad joke an’ cut capers, baith pheesical an’ intellectual, I verily believe, if he was gaun to be hanged!

From The Garret and the Garden by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)

But the Tsarevich had a jester who was always with him, and used always to jest and cut capers whenever this child of the Tsar was sad.

From Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales by Bain, R. Nisbet (Robert Nisbet)

Much as he loved to cut capers and play tricks on others, Moses never liked to have any one get a laugh on him.

From The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat Slumber-Town Tales by Smith, Harry L.

Related Words

• cavort
• frolic
• gambol
• prance