capreol

capreol (plural capreols)

1. (obsolete) A high leap.
   • 1631, Ben Jonson, Chloridia:

     Ixion […] turn'd dancer, does nothing but cut capreols, fetch friskals, and leads lavaltoes

   • 1670, Virgil, Scarronides; Or Virgile Travestie, page 73:

     Run through the field with frisks and kicks, In various capreols and tricks, Some ease poor thing, alass, to find;

   • 1743, John Torbuck, A collection of Welch travels, and memoirs of Wales, page 21:

     A little Wall lay sculking about this Territory of the Dead, which we suppos'd was plac'd there as a Bulwark to their Ashes, but it prov'd but a feeble Fence against the Intrusion of the Lambs, who made frequent Capreols into this adjacent Dormitory.

   • 1756, John Dove, An Essay on Inspiration, page 182:

     Ye know the capers our friends cut, their transnatural leaps exceed the capreols at Sadler's, or those of Del Phobo, or the dance of Merlin's giants: fools!

   • 2016, Peter Edwards, Elspeth Graham, Authority, Authorship and Aristocratic Identity in Seventeenth-Century England, page 137:

     Noblissimo's First Gentleman remarks 'Your Lordship rid to day beyond Perseus on his Pegasus' and Noblissimo, modestly deferring, 'No Monsieur, he went (if Poets speak truth) in higher Capreols than ever I shall make my Horse go'.

2. (obsolete) A billy goat or small roebuck.
   • 1661, Robert Lovell, Sive Panzoologicomineralogia. Or a Compleat History of Animals and Minerals, Containing the Summe of All Authors, Both Ancient and Modern:

     the wild boare and sow, red and fallow deere, roebuck, and capreol, hare, conie, and squirrels, & c. of which, see more in their proper places.

   • 1821, Wernerian Natural History Society, Edinburgh, Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society - Volume 3, page 211:

     It may be remarked, that Bellenden, in the translation of Boethius which he undertook (probably about the year 1536) at the request of King James V., while he omits the cervi, capreols, and even the lutroe, mentions bevers without the slightest hesitation.

   • 1910, San Francisco Daily Times - Volume 19, page 6:

     In the Latin of course the billy goat is caper from which we have the obsolete word capreol, meaning nothing more nor less than a plain billy goat. But if I had spoken of a capreol my untutored enemies would never have understood my drift.

3. (obsolete) A tendril.
   • 1587, Levinus Lemnius, An Herbal for the Bible, page 177:

     For the Gourd is full of braunches, and beareth great broad leaues, and by the helpe of tendrels, or capreols quickly claspeth, catcheth hold, and climbeth vp to a great height, and maketh a pleasant Arbor to sit vnder, and to defende a man from the heat of the pearching Sunne.

   • 1657, Jean de Renou, A Medicinal Dispensatory, page 403:

     The white beares white berryes, and somtimes white leafes, emitting certaine branches or capreols out of the midst of its leafs, wherewith it so strictly complects the Trees, that it kills them by sucking their humour from them;

   • 1699, John Evelyn, Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets, page 72:

     Vine, Vitis, the Capreols, Tendrels, and Claspers ( like those of the Hop, & c. ) whilst very young, have an agreeable Acid, which may be eaten alone, or with other Sallet .

4. (obsolete) A side brace.
   • 1854, Robert Stuart, Cyclopedia of Architecture, page 340:

     Over these other beams, wellwrought from timbers of 2 fee , are placed around; upon which the transtræ and capreols, ( the principal rafters and braces, ) being placed coincident with the zophorus, antæ , and walls of the pronaos, sustain one culmen (the horizontal piece of timber in the ridge of the roof) the whole length of the basilica, and another transversely from the middle over the pronaos of the temple;

• polacre