WHIMSY

flightiness, arbitrariness, whimsicality, whimsy, whimsey, capriciousness

(noun) the trait of acting unpredictably and more from whim or caprice than from reason or judgment; “I despair at the flightiness and whimsicality of my memory”

notion, whim, whimsy, whimsey

(noun) an odd or fanciful or capricious idea; “the theatrical notion of disguise is associated with disaster in his stories”; “he had a whimsy about flying to the moon”; “whimsy can be humorous to someone with time to enjoy it”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

whimsy (usually uncountable, plural whimsies)

A quaint and fanciful idea; a whim; playfully odd behaviour.

An impulsive, illogical or capricious character.

(mining) A whim (capstan or vertical drum).

A jigsaw puzzle piece that has been cut into a recognizable shape, as if on a whim; often the shape is representative of the theme of the image used for the puzzle.

Verb

whimsy (third-person singular simple present whimsies, present participle whimsying, simple past and past participle whimsied)

(transitive) To fill with whimsies or whims; to make fantastic; to craze.

To have a man's brain whimsied with his wealth.

Source: Wiktionary


Whim"sey, Whimsy, n.; pl. Whimseys or Whimsies. Etym: [See Whim.]

1. A whim; a freak; a capricious notion, a fanciful or odd conceit. "The whimsies of poets and painters." Ray. Men's folly, whimsies, and inconstancy. Swift. Mistaking the whimseys of a feverish brain for the calm revelation of truth. Bancroft.

2. (Mining)

Definition: A whim.

Whim"sy, n.

Definition: A whimsey.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

21 April 2025

ENCYCLOPEDIA

(noun) a reference work (often in several volumes) containing articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with the entire range of human knowledge or with some particular specialty


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Coffee Trivia

According to Guinness World Records, the largest collection of coffee pots belongs to Robert Dahl (Germany) and consists of 27,390 coffee pots as of 2 November 2012, in Rövershagen, Germany.

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