Also 7 caragolo, carrocol. [a. F. caracol, caracole, ad. It. caracollo wheeling of a horse, ad. Sp. (and Pg.) caracol snail, periwinkle, spiral shell, also winding stair; in sense 1 Cat. has caragol, It. also caragollo. Ulterior derivation doubtful: see Diez and Skeat.]
† 1. A spiral shell. Obs.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 94. Certaine shels, like those of mother of pearles, which are brought out of the East Indies, to make standing cups, called caracoles.
2. Arch. ‘A term sometimes applied to a staircase in the form of a helix or spiral’ (Gwilt).
1721–1800. Bailey, Caracol.
1753. in Chambers, Cycl. Supp.
1823. in Crabb, Techn. Dict.; and in mod. Dicts.
3. A half-turn or wheel to the right or left executed by a horseman. Littré gives the sense in Fr. as ‘a succession of such wheels to right and left alternately, movement in a zigzag course,’ which appears to have been the earlier sense in Eng. also. Many writers have used the word without any clear notion of its meaning: see next.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb., I. i. (1668), 21. In the Art of Horsemanship, there are divers and sundry turns … those we call Caragolo.
1643. Slingsby, Diary (1836), 103. Now was Sr Wm Constable crept out of Hull wth their Horse making their Carrocols upon ye woulds.
a. 1679. Earl Orrery, Guzman, IV. What a Caracole he made, when you fac’d about.
1792. Osbaldiston, Brit. Sportsm., 94/1. They sometimes ride up in caracols, to perplex the enemy.
1810. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 4), V. 171. In the army, the horse always makes a caracol after each discharge, in order to pass the rear of the squadron.
1825. Scott, Talism., xxviii. The Scottish knight … made his courser carry him in a succession of caracoles to his station.
1863. Thornbury, True as Steel, I. 145. Chargers pacing with curvets and caracoles.
