CAPRICIOUSNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does capriciousness mean? 

• CAPRICIOUSNESS (noun)
  The noun CAPRICIOUSNESS has 2 senses:

1. the quality of being guided by sudden unpredictable impulses

2. the trait of acting unpredictably and more from whim or caprice than from reason or judgment

  Familiarity information: CAPRICIOUSNESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CAPRICIOUSNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of being guided by sudden unpredictable impulses

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

capriciousness; unpredictability

Hypernyms ("capriciousness" is a kind of...):

changefulness; inconstancy (the quality of being changeable and variable)

Derivation:

capricious (changeable)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of acting unpredictably and more from whim or caprice than from reason or judgment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

arbitrariness; capriciousness; flightiness; whimsey; whimsicality; whimsy

Context example:

I despair at the flightiness and whimsicality of my memory

Hypernyms ("capriciousness" is a kind of...):

irresponsibility; irresponsibleness (a form of untrustworthiness; the trait of lacking a sense of responsibility and not feeling accountable for your actions)

Derivation:

capricious (determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason)

 Context examples 

What animation, both of body and mind, she had derived from watching the advance of that season which cannot, in spite of its capriciousness, be unlovely, and seeing its increasing beauties from the earliest flowers in the warmest divisions of her aunt's garden, to the opening of leaves of her uncle's plantations, and the glory of his woods.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)