Capriciousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of acting on sudden, unplanned changes in mood or behavior
2. A tendency to be guided by erratic or whimsical impulses rather than reason
3. The condition of unpredictability marked by frequent and unexpected shifts in decisions or feelings

Etymology: Capriciousness is a plain English formation: the adjective "capricious" with the suffix "-ness", which turns a quality into a noun naming that quality. The adjective itself comes from "caprice", a word that ultimately points back to a goat. The Latin "capra" meant goat, and its derivative "caprice" once suggested the sudden leaps and jerky changes of direction that goats are known for, before the sense shifted to the mind. The suffix "-ness" has a long pedigree of its own. It descends from an Old English form "-nes", which attached to adjectives to form abstract nouns, so that "good" gave "goodness" and "dark" gave "darkness." Middle English kept the pattern, and the suffix remains one of the most productive ways English has of naming a state or condition. The result is a word that describes a mood or pattern of behavior rather than a single act: the steady, recognizable quality of changing one's mind without warning. Its meaning follows directly from the adjective, with the abstract suffix doing the work of turning a description into a named condition.

Synonyms: fickleness, whimsy, mercurialness

Antonyms: steadiness, predictability