What's the difference between capricious and fickle?

Capricious


Definition:

  • (a.) Governed or characterized by caprice; apt to change suddenly; freakish; whimsical; changeable.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The production of vocal sound is not capricious, it follows certain laws many of which are not known.
  • (2) Yet beneath the facade of implacable command was a moody, capricious man with a strained marriage: while he was in India, his wife Edwina had allegedly conducted an affair with the Indian politician Nehru.
  • (3) In one undisclosed court document in Kenya, seen by the Guardian, BAT’s lawyers demand the country’s high court “quash in its entirety” a package of anti-smoking regulations and rails against what it calls a “capricious” tax plan.
  • (4) The individual number of pathological scores showed a decrease already within the first treatment week and a further decrease by the end of the trial, especially for the items of capriciousness, obstinacy, irritability and restlessness.
  • (5) The rains in Katine sub-county in rural Uganda have been capricious all year, beyond the control even of such a faithful community as this.
  • (6) Degree of compliance with dietary advice, especially of the pregnant woman with a capricious appetite, is understandably difficult to assess.
  • (7) Opportunistic infections are increasingly becoming a problem in cancer patients amongst whom infection with Nocardia species is particularly difficult to detect due to the capricious natural history of the disease.
  • (8) Ashley can be capricious but unless he has a dramatic change of heart, the manager will have the chance to start winning back hearts and minds against Hull.
  • (9) Gambians had come to expect surprises from their leader – cruel, violent and capricious in power – just not ones that set the whole nation dancing in the streets and sent shockwaves of joy and inspiration across the continent.
  • (10) She has played middling singers and capricious interns, dancers, dreamers and damsels in distress, and she has done so with such ease and abandon that the actor and her alter egos have a tendency to blur.
  • (11) Antimicrobial susceptibility testing is somewhat capricious in part from the marked effect of inoculum size in some circumstances.
  • (12) That needs to be taken into consideration.” Philipp Mißfelder, foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union, said: “I think deportations and extraditions to countries that have the death penalty are very problematic.” The Berlin judiciary should under no circumstances allow itself to become a willing tool of Cairo's capricious regime Franziska Brantner, Green party Egypt accuses both Qatar and al-Jazeera of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which was branded a terrorist organisation after the military deposed the president, Mohamed Morsi, in 2013.
  • (13) Detailed, within-subjects Golgi analyses of regional differences in cerebellar Purkinje cell dendritic development are impractical due to the capriciousness of that technique.
  • (14) HBFP technique is capricious and the differentiation step should be controlled stringently; ethanolic picric acid, therefore, is recommended as a differentiation fluid.
  • (15) And in part, as Murray staggered about indiscriminately high-fiving at the end, there was a sense that this has also been something of a rather mannered love story, at its centre Murray and that prim, capricious, but in the end compliantly adorable Wimbledon crowd.
  • (16) With De Jong not properly match fit, Vito Mannone remained under-employed but Sunderland's goalkeeper did save a capriciously curving shot from Tioté quite brilliantly.
  • (17) Having bowled out England in their second innings for 123, West Indies were required to make 192 to win the match and square the series and the expectation was that it would be a tough call for them, given the capricious nature of the pitch on the first two days, not least a second day in which 18 wickets fell, which is unprecedented for a Test match in Barbados.
  • (18) This bilingual city in the eastern “Maritime” Canadian province of New Brunswick had appeared the ideal venue for these teams but with dark rain clouds hovering in the humid skies and a capricious wind blowing, the residents of the French speaking suburb of Dieppe and English speaking Riverview had evidently decided to stay indoors.
  • (19) Zwiebel argues the bill would invite capricious litigation "that could be extremely harmful to some of the most important institutions in our community".
  • (20) However, the standards and essentials that are ultimately adopted must be applied uniformly and fairly and not in an arbitrary or capricious manner.

Fickle


Definition:

  • (a.) Not fixed or firm; liable to change; unstable; of a changeable mind; not firm in opinion or purpose; inconstant; capricious; as, Fortune's fickle wheel.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Light testing equipment is fickle by nature, making such units uncommon.
  • (2) Over the last five years in particular, the main parties' opinion poll ratings have been strikingly fickle.
  • (3) This was a risky proposition that depended on the good will of gentrifiers, who are famously fickle.
  • (4) Vinny's fame was quick, fickle and fizzled out a generation ago, hence leaving him quite literally sleeping in a skip, pickled by booze.
  • (5) It is also unthinking because it takes little account of the pending impact of the falling terms of trade and the sluggish domestic economy, which is being held back by chronic weakness in consumer sentiment and fickle business conditions.
  • (6) They were there to record everything from his despair at the fickleness of his recruits, to the distress of his wife Jools at the way the media had invaded their privacy, with scurrilous rumours of infidelity.
  • (7) Bowie wasn't a traditional pop star, happy to be known for one sound or idea then to be discarded by a fickle public.
  • (8) Washington has long been a fan of the petro-dollar and Obama is proving another fickle enthusiast, flirting with the industry one moment, even as he snaps at it the next – like the coquettish mistress of an oil tycoon.
  • (9) Could he build a winner to win over sometimes fickle Miami fans?
  • (10) Raquel Paiva, professor of communications at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said Brazil was a fickle nation that would probably soon forget this humiliation.
  • (11) The digital audience is more fickle: we have multiple subscriptions to magazines and newspapers; we leave a spray of comments on different websites.
  • (12) It is a strange and fickle beast, a flexible friend, dubious and duplicitous, as I was about to find out.
  • (13) How fickle the rest of the country is to forget its history at the expense of cheaper foreign imports.
  • (14) These moves are significant because the above list includes some strongly backed National candidates – especially Goold, who led the Headlong company, and Featherstone – but no recent appointee to another theatre could now express interest in Hytner's job without disqualifying themselves because of the appearance of fickleness.
  • (15) Bernard had become well aware of the fickle ways of Fleet Street and had become canny.
  • (16) At nearly 50, Ross will need to remain in the public eye lest the fickle world of TV starts to forget about him, but there are other ways of staying noticed in the digital era.
  • (17) The Scottish National party has repeatedly claimed that English and Welsh politicians would force Scotland to accept cuts or the loss of the Barnett formula if there was a no vote, accusing Westminster parties of being fickle.
  • (18) While the site is still sizeable it has lost users, business and momentum – extremely dangerous territory for anyone in the fickle internet business.
  • (19) Given the fickle and hypercritical nature of the group, in conceiving Spamalot Idle had to manage his expectations.
  • (20) She experienced something that transcended her pretty fickle and changeable musical allegiances.