Other forms: cavorting, cavorts, cavorted
To cavort is to leap about in a lively excited way. Cavorting in the fountain, cavort about, cavorting on the beach.
Newspapers use it disapprovingly of people enjoying themselves, usually with a suggestion of impropriety. It began in America in the 1790s, first of horses, and is probably built on vault with an intensifying prefix.
1verbcavortTo leap about in a lively excited way.
“The children cavorted on the beach, splashing in and out of the waves.”
cavort is a way of moving.
American, from 1793, first used of horses. Probably an intensified form of vault, to leap.
Built from
Originated in the United States in 1793, as cauvaut, applying to horses, probably from the colloquial intensifying prefix ca-/ka- + vault (“jump, leap”); later generalized. Early sources connect it to cavault, a term for a certain demeanor of horses. Alternatively, a variation of curvet.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA