caprice

The early Spring is changing today a bit and, as I watch the branches bend and flower leaves dance, I think this word applies: there's a bit of whimsy in my day--what about yours?

caprice \kuh-PREES\, noun:

1. A sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.
2. A tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality; capriciousness.
3. Music. Capriccio.

Does she turn, thought he, thus, from one to the other, with no preference but of accident or caprice? Is her favour thus light of circulation?
-- Fanny Burney, Camilla, or a Picture of Youth

You lose, you gain—it's all caprice. The omnipotence of caprice. The likelihood of reversal. Yes, the unpredictable reversal and its power.
-- Philip Roth, The Humbling

Caprice is from the Italian word capriccio which means a sudden start or motion. It comes from the word capro meaning goat.

cordate

cordate \KAWR-deyt\, adjective:

1. Heart-shaped.
2. (Of leaves) heart-shaped, with the attachment at the notched end.

Despite their strong and interlinked root structure, the actual flowers were of a lowly order, though, canted towards the sun, they attracted the cordate butterflies.
-- Brian Wilson Aldiss, Hothouse

Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando down the center vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent.
-- Vladimir Nabakov, Speak, Memory

Related to core, cordate comes from the Latin word for heart, cor, and the suffix -ate which forms an adjective from a noun.

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I am "in love" with words and the sentence above by Vladimir Nabakov is perfect to me. I suggest it is also a poem, with some line editing by me:

Without any wind blowing,

the sheer weight of a raindrop,

shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf,

caused its tip to dip,

And,

what looked like a globule of quicksilver

performed a sudden glissando down the center vein,

And then,

having shed its bright load,

the relieved leaf

unbent.

Happy Valentine's Day--from anitawrites