Capricorn

What is Capricorn like?

Capricorn is responsible, ambitious and very funny, if you know where to look. They set a goal, work out the steps and keep walking. While other signs are talking about their ideas, a Capricorn is on step fourteen of theirs.

They are the grown-ups of the zodiac, and many of them were grown-ups at nine. They look after people in practical ways: they sort the bills, they drive the older relatives, they remember the insurance. They rarely mention any of it.

The humour is the great surprise. It is dry, deadpan and often delivered without any change of expression. A Capricorn may say something outrageous at a formal dinner in the same voice they use for reading out a phone number. People who only meet the serious side miss the best of them.

What are the weak spots of Capricorn?

Work is both the strength and the problem. A Capricorn can come to feel worth only what they achieve, and can forget to stop. The evening off gets postponed until the project is done, and then there is another project.

They can seem cold. They are not, but feelings are private, and showing them can feel like a risk. A Capricorn who loves you may express it by fixing your gutter, and you may need to learn to read that language.

They can also be hard on themselves, and rather pessimistic. "It will probably go wrong" counts as planning in this sign. Friends who get them to laugh, and to leave the office by six, do a great service.

Who does Capricorn get on with?

Capricorn usually gets on best with the other earth signs, Taurus and Virgo, who share the love of a good plan and a solid chair. Scorpio and Pisces are good matches too, as water softens the rock a little. Cancer, the opposite sign, can make a very strong team: Capricorn takes on the world, Cancer makes the home, and both care more about family than they say.

Aries and Libra are fellow cardinal signs, so there may be a question of who is in charge. Fire and air signs can feel unserious to a Capricorn, and may turn out to be exactly what is needed. A sun sign is only a small part of any match, as the compatibility pages show.

What is Capricorn like at work?

Capricorn was made for this. Management, government, engineering, law, building, finance and any long career with a ladder in it tend to suit this sign. They respect rules, they respect people who have earned their place, and they plan in decades.

They rarely rush. A Capricorn may take fifteen years to become an overnight success. As a manager they are firm, fair and sparing with praise, so praise from a Capricorn really means something. As a colleague, they are the one who has read the whole report.

How does Capricorn handle money?

Capricorn tends to be thrifty and to think far ahead. They know what things cost, they like a long-term plan, and they would rather have one thing that lasts than three that do not. Many of them do well in later life, having quietly built something solid. Now and then they should buy the ridiculous thing. It will do them good.

What does the Capricorn symbol mean?

The symbol is the sea-goat, an old creature with the front of a goat and the tail of a fish, known in Babylon thousands of years ago. It is a good image for this sign: the climber who also came from deep water. Greek stories link it with the goat Amalthea, who fed the infant Zeus, and with the god Pan. The glyph is a curling line of horn and tail. The constellation is one of the faintest in the zodiac, so you have to be patient to find it, which seems right.

Saturn is the ruling planet of Capricorn, the planet of time, limits and hard-won results. It is why this sign gets better with age. Follow it on the Capricorn horoscope, and find out where Saturn sits for you with a free birth chart. It usually explains which things you have never let yourself off the hook for.