Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An odd or fanciful idea; a whim.
- n. A quaint or fanciful quality: stories full of whimsy.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A whim; a freak; a capricious notion.
- n. Same as whim, 3; also, a small warehousecrane for lifting goods to the upper stories.
- n. See the quotation.
- Full of whims or fancies; whimsical; changeable.
- To fill with whimsies.
Wiktionary
- n. A quaint and fanciful idea. A whim. Playfully odd behaviour.
- n. An impulsive, illogical or capricious character.
- n. mining A whim.
- v. transitive To fill with whimsies or whims; to make fantastic; to craze.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A whimsey.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the trait of acting unpredictably and more from whim or caprice than from reason or judgment
- n. an odd or fanciful or capricious idea
Etymologies
- Probably from whim-wham, fanciful object. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It is the very definition of a “race to the bottom,” at what I call a whimsy economy.”
“But whimsy is not exactly a postmodern mode, and in Chronic City it betrays a certain aesthetic timidity.”
“In my own work, I'm not satisfied unless the whimsy is balanced with horror and vice versa.”
“My sense of whimsy is too powerful to write dark novels book after book.”
Kristine Kathryn Rusch » Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Goals and Dreams
“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.”
“Perhaps it will not drown me in whimsy upon a second viewing.”
“For Charles Gadeken, founder of QBox, the nonprofit organization that sponsors the drag races, such workshop whimsy is the next creative frontier.”
“However, a key element of the old show is that any sketch could end either in whimsy or just the cruel whims of fate.”
“(link) "Aggressive whimsy" is just the term, and it nearly put me off for good.”
“It’s the same reason I get squirmy when I see drunk twentysomethings loudly singing in the streets, convinced their exuberant whimsy is entertaining all within earshot — I flash back to a night in 1994 when I did the same thing, confident that passersby thought that a staggering Manhattanite howling “New York, New York” with his friends late on a Saturday night was a heeeeeelarious sight.”
Josh Wolk's Pop Culture Club talks 'Bored to Death': Ted Danson rules all | EW.com
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘whimsy’.
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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anais
basket, bag, lettuce, cilantro, lemon, soda, coke, whimsy, water, avocado, hat
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fairytale words
any words which evoke a sense of childplay and fairytales!
unicorn, penchant, whimsy, folly, dastardly, pixie, sylph, kelpie, petticoat, elfin, fey, dandelion
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HollieGolightly's list
indigo, flippant, quaint, ebullience, subterfuge, conspicuous, surreptitiously, kodachrome, doppelganger, hullabaloo, nabob, motley and 21 more...
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jilma's list
favorite sounding words
alchemy, missoula, tenacity, colibrí, lilith, tangible, tangle, emblazoned, brazen, willowy, baroque, macabre and 35 more...
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Random Words! Add Your Own! :D
Randomness time! Add your own words. ❤
Love, bucket, brigade, actuary, canal, canasta, why is the door open, coconut, stochastic, haphazard, accidental, chance and 38 more...
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onomatopoeic
warble, quibble, quirk, drudgery, chortle, snicker, galumph, thwart, schlock, whimsy, garble, miffed and 25 more...
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Music lingo
unsyncopated rhythms, tonal harmonies, ambient soundscapes, bass line, synths, mellow, trippy, instrumental, vocal harmony, vamping, tonality, riff and 47 more...
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Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
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Quirkstyle
Fashion elegance, oddities, styles, and cool garments.
tatterdemalion, froufrou, gingham, argyle, corset, hoop skirt, pantaloons, bloomers, jaunty, seersucker, twill, ganguro and 126 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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words I love to use
kerfuffle, smarmy, sketchy, grim, wheedle, piffle, prattle, loggerheads, snarky, piddling, nix, caterwaul and 90 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (W)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
wail, waistcoat, wales, wallflower, wand, wandering, wanderlust, waning, ward, wardrobe, warp, wassail and 97 more...
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NakedFringe's Words
masticate, chamber, orchid, mandolin, yellow, pomegranate, conundrum, paradox, gyrate, calamitous, opalescent, cacophony and 533 more...
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allegria's wordarama
whimsy, braggadoccio, snarky, manini, alleluia, aurora borealis, maman, paisley, frolic
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Some Words I Love to Use
arcology, strumpet, crux, confected, pedant, bluestocking, cogitation, incensed, lovecraftian, cygnet, dactyl, adytum and 539 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for whimsy.
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