How to Use capricious in a Sentence

capricious

adjective
Definition of capriciousnext
Synonyms for capriciousnext
  • The court ruled that the punishment was arbitrary and capricious.
  • But the capricious nature of the disease made that hard.
    — Sandy Banks Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 29 Nov. 2020
  • Wang wanted to find the most capricious radio signals in the sky.
    — Max G. Levy, Wired, 24 Feb. 2021
  • The court ruled that the increase was arbitrary and capricious.
    — Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2019
  • The court ruled the increase was arbitrary and capricious.
    — Washington Post, 14 Sep. 2019
  • Some are subject to the whims of capricious billionaires.
    — Matthew Miles Goodrich, The New Republic, 6 Mar. 2023
  • To pick against my childhood team might be seen as the best way to pull one over on the capricious gods of baseball.
    — The New York Times, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2016
  • The judge is abusing the arbitrary and capricious standard.
    — Noah Feldman Bloomberg Opinion (tns), Star Tribune, 28 Jan. 2021
  • Similar scenes played out all over the metro area, a reminder of the capricious nature of storms.
    — Bryn Stole, NOLA.com, 29 Oct. 2020
  • No doubt about it, the spring weather for the past few years has been, to put it politely, capricious.
    — Roxie Hammill, kansascity.com, 29 Apr. 2017
  • Investors may be capricious, but the market's math is a stubborn thing.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 13 Oct. 2020
  • That all should add even more unpredictability to a league that can be quite capricious.
    — Jim Reineking, USA TODAY, 25 Feb. 2023
  • All of which makes the decision to ban Parler seem somewhat capricious.
    — Gilad Edelman, Wired, 13 Jan. 2021
  • Orange’s balance between light and dark has always been a capricious one.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 25 July 2019
  • Often the wheel, spun by the blind and capricious goddess of fortune, features a royal figure trying to cling to it.
    — Jason Zweig, WSJ, 4 Sep. 2020
  • The gaps in resources and talent between the Wisconsins and the Winthrops have been winnowed by the effects of a capricious virus.
    — New York Times, 22 Mar. 2021
  • The bottom line figures are going to be totally capricious.
    — Will Daniel, Fortune, 6 Nov. 2023
  • That circuit exemplifies the capricious nature of this process.
    — Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 13 Nov. 2020
  • This means Blackout can feel capricious and jarring in a way that other battle royale games don't.
    — Julie Muncy, Ars Technica, 19 Oct. 2018
  • One that wouldn’t rely on the capricious power supply in his Highlandtown home.
    — Christine Condon, baltimoresun.com, 1 Sep. 2020
  • The issue is that Trump has from the start run his affairs like a capricious monarch who likes to have a discordant range of conflicting advice.
    — Jeet Heer, The New Republic, 2 Apr. 2018
  • Decisions about what to subsidize and by how much have, at best, been arbitrary and capricious.
    — Michael Graetz, WIRED, 27 Dec. 2011
  • Nature could seem capricious and cruel, and human beings were at its mercy.
    — Mary Carole McCauley, Baltimore Sun, 18 Aug. 2023
  • All of these respected voices are struggling to see any sense in Fitch’s capricious downgrade.
    — Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 3 Aug. 2023
  • The sneaky stuff — the lack of home rule, the broken tax structure, the cruel and capricious education system — was left untouched.
    — al, 5 Dec. 2022
  • The State Department has warned of the capricious and unpredictable nature of these policies.
    — George Calhoun, Forbes, 27 Sep. 2021
  • Whether or not those rules are arbitrary or capricious doesn't really figure into this part of the equation.
    — Samuel Axon, Ars Technica, 17 June 2020
  • In this capricious universe, death comes for children instead of their parents, and for all of us eventually.
    — Charles Bramesco, Chron, 18 Nov. 2022
  • Teach, Donny’s capricious and foul-mouthed friend, barges into the shop mid-lecture.
    — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Apr. 2022
  • Musk has been capricious in his approach to the deal, critiquing the platform from his popular Twitter account.
    — Elizabeth Dwoskin, Washington Post, 16 June 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'capricious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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