ETYMOLOGY
from caper (a frolicsome leap) + witted (relating to wit or intelligence)
EXAMPLE
“… I have stood by his Table often, when I was about the Age of Two and twenty Years, and from thence forward, and have heard learned Pieces read before him at his Dinners, which I thought strange; but a Chaplain of James Mantague, Bishop of Winton, told me, that the Bishop had read over unto him the four Tomes of Cardinal Bellarmine’s Controversies at those Respites, when his Majesty took fresh Air, and weighed the Objections and Answers of that sub∣tle Author, and sent often to the Libraries in Cambridge for Books, to examine his Quotations. Surely then, whatsoever any Caperwitted Man may observe, neither was the King’s Chastity stained, nor his Wisdom lull’d asleep, nor his Care of Government slackned, by Lodging in those Courts remote from London, where he was freer from Disturbances …”
From: Scrinia Reserata a memorial offer’d to the great deservings of John Williams, D. D.
By John Hacket, 1693
Lexicophilia 