capon

From Middle English capoun; partly from Old Northern French capon (Old French chapon) and partly from Old English capūn, both from Latin capo, caponem (Vulgar Latin *cappo), from Proto-Indo-European *kop- (“to strike, to beat”).

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪpən/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

capon (plural capons)

1. A cockerel which has been gelded and fattened for the table.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     […] You cannot feed capons so.

• Yarmouth capon

capon (third-person singular simple present capons, present participle caponing, simple past and past participle caponed)

1. (transitive) To castrate; to make a capon of.

• Ponca, capno-, no cap, pocan

• IPA^(key): /ka.pɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

capon (feminine caponne, masculine plural capons, feminine plural caponnes)

1. (derogatory) cowardly

capon m (plural capons)

1. (derogatory) coward

• couard
• lâche
• poltron

• “capon”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

capon

1. Alternative form of capoun

From Vulgar Latin *cāppo.

capon oblique singular, m (oblique plural capons, nominative singular capons, nominative plural capon)

1. capon (castrated cockerel)

• capón

See capón.

capon m (plural caponi) or capon m (plural capuni)

1. capon

• caponar