curvet

Of a horse or, by extension, another animal: to leap about, to frolic.

Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps, / With gentle majesty and modest pride; / Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, / As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried; / And this I do to captivate the eye / Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'

The boy turns into a dog and bow-wows—a cock, he flaps his wings and crows—a cow, he fetches a long drawn moo—a horse broke loose, he curvets, prances and kicks fearfully among his nursery blocks—a big bull, he waxes dangerous as he bellows and paws the carpet—a locomotive, he blows his steam whistle and dashes round the nursery with puffs and yells spasmodic, or taming down, sticks a feather in his cap and struts a soldier.

To cause to leap about, dart or jump.

[…] I could no more travel the same Path, again and again, than I could have Patience to mount a managed Horse, in the Riding-House, and curvet it in the same Spot, for three Hours together.

[…] the upright leaden spout, curveting its liquid filament into [the well], is merely a representation of what the gardener himself, if called upon, could do better and more abundantly.

To fly or swim with darting movements.

[…] flights of small, low-flying brown doves chased one another to and fro, and bee-eaters, emerald-green, curvetted like slow swallows.

The west wind was the music, the motion, the force / To which the swans curveted, a will to change, / A will to make iris frettings on the blank.

(of a person) To prance; to caper, frolic.

He curvetted back into the living-room […]

It is not possible, many critics allege, that Juana Inés could have lived in the whirlwind of the court for five years […] and have emerged unscathed. I have already said that it would be absurd to discount the possibility of some curvetting and amorous play.

(of an object) To jump, skip, shake.

[…] you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.

The earth shook itself like an animal on whose back a predator has lodged. It spasmed, curvetted, tossed and writhed, to throw that malignity from its shoulders.

A particular leap in which a horse raises both forelegs at once, equally advanced, and, as the forelegs are falling, raises the hind legs, so that all the legs are in the air at once.

Complexion and constitution are alike revived by a drive in the Park—a white glove rests on the carriage window—and some 'gallant gray' or chestnut Arabian is curbed into curvets and foam by its whispering master.

A prank; a frolic.