Is it only an interjection? Is it at all possible for me to capiche something? Perhaps I don't capiche the word because I thought it was Italian... Didn't they use it in The Godfather? Because that's the only place I've ever heard anyone use Italian words that made it into the American language. Of course, only after we mutilate it (capisci).
Yes, it's only and interjection/interrogative, and yes, it's only an English (US, almost exclusively) word after it came into being after being mutilated - as you say - in the nineteen-fourties...
"Don't put your feet on the coffee table, you're mussing my doilies! And I don't want you wearing your shoes in the living room anymore, capiche?"
Apropos, indeed!
By the way Mxy, have you put Dictionary.com aside? - Merriam-Webster rules!
Nope, because:
- It lacks SO many words, like "capiche," for instance!
- It's main page is a MESS.
- They're too conceited for my taste.
- Impossible for me to remember how to spell website name.
- I burned my Merriam-Webster dictionary after wifey used it to beat me in Scrabble
TM because it didn't have some word that I played for lots o' points that she challenged - and WON because of it's lameness!
So NO Merriam-Webster for me, capiche?!?