variants
also whimsey
as in humor
a sudden impulsive and apparently unmotivated idea or action
the pop singer's latest whimsy is that she has acting talent
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Recent Examples of whimsy
From magical powers to an old-timey aesthetic, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is reminiscent of a lot of what made Harry Potter great and satisfies that similar feeling of whimsy and woe.
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Yasmeen Hamadeh, People.com, 29 Sep. 2024
Kahane’s manner is, like his music, unpretentious, though shot through with dark humor and whimsy.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 8 Oct. 2024
Fornasetti's artistry brings such a fun touch of whimsy to any home.
—Conçetta Ciarlo, Vogue, 1 Nov. 2024
The exterior also introduces the air of whimsy that went into the design, with the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot plated in silver and gold in such a way as to suggest that the sculpture is 'really' made of gold, under a silver disguise that has worn away.
—David Szondy, New Atlas, 30 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for whimsy 
Yasmeen Hamadeh, People.com, 29 Sep. 2024
Kahane’s manner is, like his music, unpretentious, though shot through with dark humor and whimsy.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 8 Oct. 2024
Fornasetti's artistry brings such a fun touch of whimsy to any home.
—Conçetta Ciarlo, Vogue, 1 Nov. 2024
The exterior also introduces the air of whimsy that went into the design, with the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot plated in silver and gold in such a way as to suggest that the sculpture is 'really' made of gold, under a silver disguise that has worn away.
—David Szondy, New Atlas, 30 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for whimsy
Recent Examples of Synonyms for whimsy
Noun
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Blend humor, vulnerability and appreciation to create a unified, inclusive environment.Expert Panel®, Forbes, 21 Nov. 2024
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Detroit rep favorite Antoine McKay, always dependable and able to mine great humor from even the most serious moments, brings warmth and belly laughs to the part of salesman Russell.Duante Beddingfield, Detroit Free Press, 20 Nov. 2024
Noun
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Linkages between these users and any administration would subvert the traditional notion of citizenship, and agreements between the entities would be unlike ordinary alliances.Henry A. Kissinger, Foreign Affairs, 18 Nov. 2024
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Mann scorned the notion of the writer as political activist.George Packer, The Atlantic, 5 Nov. 2024
Noun
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The third category was a small but influential group of MAGA true believers and chaos agents who sought to carry out Trump’s whims without any clarification or regard for the consequences.Peter D. Feaver, Foreign Affairs, 6 Nov. 2024
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On traditional platforms, content can be removed or suppressed based on the whims of the platform’s owners or external pressures.Gary Weinstein, Forbes, 4 Nov. 2024
Noun
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Palmer recalled, with an on-point impression of the rapper.Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 20 Nov. 2024
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Once again, their playful (but gently existential) rivalry is expressed through dueling impressions of the more famous men who came before them.David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 19 Nov. 2024
Noun
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What that means is two-fold: a series that captures Game of Thrones’s extensive, fantasy world-building and the drama of political succession and a show dropping on HBO’s premier Sunday night spot that everyone wants to talk about the morning after.Alex Abad-Santos, Vox, 18 Nov. 2024
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The fantasy thriller is from Emmy winner Lucia Puenzo.Zac Ntim, Deadline, 5 Nov. 2024
Noun
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Vape shops have spread across the American retail landscape with a bizarre swiftness, seemingly unbeholden to the same vagaries of inflation, customer demand, and local real estate that bind every other kind of storefront small business in the country.Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 22 June 2023
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Third, repeaters should prove capable of swapping this data between nodes in a network in a predictable way and not one too subject to the vagaries of chance.IEEE Spectrum, IEEE Spectrum, 13 June 2023
Noun
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Back when podcasting wasn’t co-opted by YouTube, the idea was that owning your own successful podcast insulates you from being completely beholden to the caprice of social-media algorithms.Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 12 Sep. 2024
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My rebellious nature, and my inclination for pointing out her caprices may have sharpened her disfavor.Kathy Ehrich Dowd, TIME, 10 Oct. 2024
Noun
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Insects with true color vision—like many bees, butterflies and dragonflies—can see not only many colors, but also ultraviolet wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum of humans.Smithsonian magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Nov. 2024
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Spoiler alert: This week, the city passed an Animal Keeping Ordinance, a proposal that has been in the works for more than a decade and will allow residents to raise bees, chickens and ducks.Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press, 14 Nov. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Whimsy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/whimsy. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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