Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An unusual, unexpected, or fanciful idea; a whim.
  • noun Quaint, fanciful, or playful humor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To fill with whimsies.
  • noun A whim; a freak; a capricious notion.
  • noun Same as whim, 3; also, a small warehousecrane for lifting goods to the upper stories.
  • noun See the quotation.
  • Full of whims or fancies; whimsical; changeable.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A whimsey.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A quaint and fanciful idea. A whim. Playfully odd behaviour.
  • noun An impulsive, illogical or capricious character.
  • noun mining A whim.
  • verb transitive To fill with whimsies or whims; to make fantastic; to craze.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the trait of acting unpredictably and more from whim or caprice than from reason or judgment
  • noun an odd or fanciful or capricious idea

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from whim-wham, fanciful object.]

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Examples

  • It is the very definition of a “race to the bottom,” at what I call a whimsy economy.

    A Chink In Android’s Armor Michael Arrington 2005

  • But whimsy is not exactly a postmodern mode, and in Chronic City it betrays a certain aesthetic timidity.

    The Reading Experience 2010

  • But whimsy is not exactly a postmodern mode, and in Chronic City it betrays a certain aesthetic timidity.

    April 2010 2010

  • My sense of whimsy is too powerful to write dark novels book after book.

    Kristine Kathryn Rusch » 2010 » February » 18 2010

  • Far too many of the stories are throw-aways (the second half of "Far Out," for example, consists of a series of overly cute exercises in whimsy that are, frankly, not worth the bother), and the order Updike has given them doesn't particularly do them credit or force us to consider him as a writer of short fiction in any new and more illuminating light.

    Updike, John 2010

  • My sense of whimsy is too powerful to write dark novels book after book.

    Kristine Kathryn Rusch » Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Goals and Dreams 2010

  • But whimsy is not exactly a postmodern mode, and in Chronic City it betrays a certain aesthetic timidity.

    Detecting a Wrongness 2010

  • In my own work, I'm not satisfied unless the whimsy is balanced with horror and vice versa.

    MIND MELD: The Best Genre Crossovers 2010

  • But whimsy is not exactly a postmodern mode, and in Chronic City it betrays a certain aesthetic timidity.

    Postmodernism 2010

  • Perhaps it will not drown me in whimsy upon a second viewing.

    GreenCine Daily: Rendez-Vous. 12. 2007

Comments

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  • I didn't realise this could be a verb.

    August 25, 2021