To rear up or buck, as a horse does; to make a sudden, violent movement upward or backward.
From Old French cabrer, derived from Latin capreolus meaning 'wild goat' or from capra 'goat.' The jumping motion of goats inspired the word for any animal rearing dramatically.
The same Latin root that gives us 'cabre' also appears in 'caper,' which originally meant a goat's leap—our ancestors really noticed how goats jump and built language around that observation!
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