Capcioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for the act of seizing or arresting someone ; a deceitful trick or fraudulent scheme meant to mislead
2. Old English legal sense of taking a person into custody ; an obsolete word for cunning deception intended to trap or fool others
3. A former word for the seizing or apprehension of a person or property ; a sly stratagem or piece of trickery used to deceive

Etymology: Middle English "capcioun" comes from Old French "caption," which in turn descends from the Latin "captio," a noun built on "capere," "to take" or "to seize." That root gives English a whole family of words, including "capture," "captive," and "captious." The Latin "captio" carried a sense of "deception" or "trickery" alongside its literal meaning of seizing, and that double sense passed into the Anglo-French and Middle English word. The seizing sense came first in the Latin, but English users of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries often reached for the meaning of cheating or entrapment. The word is now obsolete, and it is attested in Middle English legal and literary writing. Its two senses, the physical act of taking hold of someone and the deceitful scheme meant to mislead, show how closely Latin and later French associated catching a person with tricking them into being caught.