Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Characterized by, arising from, or subject to whimsy.
- adjective Playful or fanciful, especially in a humorous way.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Full of whims; freakish; having odd fancies or peculiar notions; capricious.
- Odd; fantastic.
- Synonyms Singular, Odd, etc. (see
eccentric ), notional, crotchety. - Fanciful, grotesque.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Full of, or characterized by, whims; actuated by a whim; having peculiar notions; queer; strange; freakish.
- adjective Odd or fantastic in appearance; quaintly devised; fantastic.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Given to
whimsy ;capricious ;odd ;peculiar ;playful ;light-hearted oramusing .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I feel Dustin would hate the word whimsical to describe anything he's written, but it's given me that sort of delight on a random Tuesday afternoon.
Archive 2008-06-24 Book Nerd 2008
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I feel Dustin would hate the word whimsical to describe anything he's written, but it's given me that sort of delight on a random Tuesday afternoon.
"One moment you are reading sleepily, the next you wake up with messy hair and a strange taste in your mouth." Book Nerd 2008
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As we now know, thanks to his current trial on charges of paying for sex with a minor, he regularly assembles veritable harems of young women for bacchanals with a dress code that could be described as whimsical.
NYT > Home Page By FRANK BRUNI 2011
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She titled the whimsical instructional, "Milk in bags, eh?"
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The sign that had once stood out front, Antiques—New and Old, was gone, as were the Nazi guards, who must have found the designation as whimsical as Private Hüber and his family did.
HITLER’S HOLY RELICS Sidney D. Kirkpatrick 2010
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The sign that had once stood out front, Antiques—New and Old, was gone, as were the Nazi guards, who must have found the designation as whimsical as Private Hüber and his family did.
HITLER’S HOLY RELICS Sidney D. Kirkpatrick 2010
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Its style might be well described as whimsical, its purpose is to amuse by means of playful fancies, and it usually exhibits
Short Story Writing A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story Charles Raymond Barrett
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Also, there is nothing that could possibly be called whimsical, nothing critical or self-critical, about him.
Since Cézanne Clive Bell 1922
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Nobody likes Micawber less for his follies; and Dickens liked his father more, the more he recalled his whimsical qualities.
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Art is not dignified by being called whimsical -- or capricious.
Albert Durer T. Sturge Moore 1907
brtom commented on the word whimsical
Tell me, Constance, how do I look this evening? Is there anything whimsical about me? Is it one of my well-looking days, child? Am I in face to-day?
Goldsmith, She Stoops, I
January 8, 2007