whimsy

• whimsey

Related to whim-wham, whim.

whimsy (usually uncountable, plural whimsies)

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

     the whimsies of poets and painters

   • Jonathan Swift

     men's folly, whimsies, and inconstancy.

   • Bancroft

     mistaking the whimseys of a feverish brain for the calm revelation of truth

   • 2012 May 27, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     It’s a lovely sequence cut too short because the show seems afraid to give itself over to romance and whimsy and wistfulness when it has wedgie jokes to deliver.

2. An impulsive, illogical or capricious character.
3. (mining) A whim (capstan or vertical drum).
4. 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.
   • "Dori, you have to solve this puzzle!" "Sure, right away doctor. Quality construction... clean edges. Oh, a whimsy!" (Television show Children's Hospital, Season 7, Episode 2, 2016)

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

1. (transitive) To fill with whimsies or whims; to make fantastic; to craze.
   • J. Fletcher

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