cavort

verb

ca·​vort kə-ˈvȯrt 

cavorted; cavorting; cavorts

intransitive verb

1

: to leap or dance about in a lively manner

Otters cavorted in the stream.

2

: to engage in extravagant behavior

The governor has been criticized for cavorting with celebrities.

Synonyms

• caper
• disport
• frisk
• frolic
• gambol
• lark
• rollick
• romp
• sport

Examples of cavort in a Sentence

Otters cavorted in the stream.

children cavorting on the first sunny day of spring

Recent Examples on the Web

The lower section, now in the Correr Museum in Venice, shows two courtesans sitting on a balcony overlooking the lagoon where the hunters cavort, a vase perched on the ledge with a telltale flowerless stem rising from it. —Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2024

Why this is the case soon becomes clear when a car bomb nearly kills a local politician, who shows up at the villa afterwards to cavort with the mobsters. —Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 May 2024

Rogowski, who threw a mean shape or two in such films as Disco Boy and Passages, also contributes a very physical performance, cavorting around Gravesend like a shy woodland faun or fowl. —Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 May 2024

Young aspirants populate the hipster Northeast, writers cavort in Silver Lake and Los Feliz, and actors climb the hills of Hollywood. —Boris Kachka, Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2024

Explore the shoreline in a canoe or kayak or take a three-hour glass-bottom boat tour to see dolphins, tropical fish and sea turtles cavorting near the coral reefs. —Miami Staff, Miami Herald, 30 Jan. 2024

Its Hollywood glamour — Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, among others, cavorted there — attracted Mrs. Luce, who was the ultimate piece of work. —Brian T. Allen, National Review, 13 Jan. 2024

This performance gets bonus points for the backup dancers clad in full ballgowns and wigs cavorting about the stage. —Lauren Huff, EW.com, 4 Jan. 2024

Nearby, frantic figures wound from wildly looping metal wires cavorted and did battle across another narrow shelf. —Jeremy C. Fox, BostonGlobe.com, 6 Sep. 2023

Word History

Etymology

earlier also cauvaut, cavault, covault, of obscure origin

Note: All early attestations of the word are North American, the first known (as cauvauted) in a letter written by the North Carolina politician John Steele in April, 1794. Various etymologies have been suggested: that the word is altered from curvet entry 1; that it is comprised of the unstressed expressive prefix ca- (as in caboodle) and vault entry 3; that it has some relation with French chahuter "to dance the chahut (a boisterous, somewhat indecent dance), to make an uproar" (see Leo Spitzer, "Cavort," Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 48 (1949), pp. 132-37). Apparently the same word is cavaulting "coition" in John Camden Hotten's A Dictionary of Modern, Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words (London, 1859). In the second edition of Hotten's dictionary (London, 1860) the word has the etymological note "Lingua Franca, cavolta," though there appears to be no evidence for such a word in Lingua Franca.

First Known Use

1794, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

cavort

verb

ca·​vort kə-ˈvȯ(ə)rt 

: to leap or dance about in a lively manner