What does "capriole" mean?

A leap that a horse makes with all fours, upwards only, without advancing, but with a kick or jerk of the hind legs when at the height of the leap.

What is a synonym for "capriole"?

Common synonyms include: caper, and jump, bob, bounce, bound, broad jump.

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
A leap that a horse makes with all fours, upwards only, without advancing, but with a kick or jerk of the hind legs when at the height of the leap.
2
a playful leap or hop wordnet
3
A leap or caper, as in dancing.
"With lofty turns and caprioles."
4
(dressage) a vertical jump of a trained horse with a kick of the hind legs at the top of the jump wordnet

Verb

1
To leap; to caper. intransitive
2
perform a capriole, in ballet wordnet
3
To cause (one's mounted horse) to perform a capriole. transitive
"Brawny fighters, all cased in buff and iron, their hearts too sheathed in oak and triple brass, caprioled their huge war-horses, shook their death-doing spears; and went forth in the most determined manner, nothing doubting."
4
perform a capriole, of horses in dressage wordnet

"With lofty turns and caprioles."

Borrowed from French capriole, from Italian capriola.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.