Capiche is an Italian word that initially became popular in English in the 1940s, popularized by Italian immigrants in America's eastern cities and by use in onscreen portrayals of Italian-Americans, often in organized crime roles.

It means "Get it?" and comes from the Italian verb capire, to understand. It is commonly misspelled and mispronounced, and has been rendered in English as "coppish," "capeesh," and "kapish,"<ref>http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kapish</ref> among other variations. Confusion about its meaning is memorably recorded in an episode of The Simpsons, in which a hardboiled supermarket security guard appends it to a warning to Bart.<ref>http://www.lardlad.com/assets/quotes/season7/proud.shtml</ref> As a note to the previous sentence, if one reads the script of that episode, it become clear that the security guard (Don Brodka) was in fact asking Bart if he understood the warning, which is in accordance with the accepted usage of the word. Rather, it is Bart who does not understand the meaning of the word "capisce," which is an inferred bilingual pun (to laboriously explain: the only word Bart does not understand mean, literally, "understand?").

It was used in the 1937 film Ali Baba Goes to Town in a slightly different manner - "Capisce Italian?"<ref>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028566/quotes</ref> It was also used in the films Bound<ref>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115736/quotes</ref>, Zoolander<ref>http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/z/zoolander-script-transcript-ben-stiller.html</ref>, and The Rookie<ref>http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/r/rookie-script-transcript-clint-eastwood.html</ref>, among others.

References

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Capisce can also be heard in the show, Full House, by Jesse, played by John Stamos, throughout the season.

External links

Word Wizard entry

Definition and note at About.com

The blatant misspelling at Urban Dictionary