noun
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a sudden, passing, and often fanciful idea; impulsive or irrational thought
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a horse-drawn winch formerly used in mining to lift ore or water
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of whim
First recorded in 1635–45; short for whim-wham
Explanation
A whim is an odd or fanciful idea, something kooky you suddenly decide to do, like dress up like a chicken or drive to Vegas. A whim can be a sudden impulse or a change of mind, like if you go shopping for school clothes but instead buy a pink cowboy hat. Whim is a shortened version of the equally silly sounding whim wham which means "fanciful object," like a tiny snow globe that plays "Hava Nagila." If you go for a drive on a whim, you could wind up anywhere, perhaps even back to the store to return that snow globe.
Vocabulary lists containing whim
List 6
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Wonder
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100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The first time Samantha R. went to Burning Man, it was on a whim.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2026
It means they can catch casual shoppers who "pop their head around the door" and decide on a whim to get their child vaccinated.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
Have you noticed that even though your every whim can be satisfied with the tap of a screen, you feel unsatisfied quite a lot of the time?
From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2026
The threat to enterprise in a mature democracy is no longer the whim of governments; it is the weight of procedure.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
For so long, she could see now, she had made her daughter live by her whim: moving on anytime she needed new ideas; anytime she had felt stuck or uneasy.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
Naomi was accustomed to Lisa-Kaindé’s whims long before they became professional artists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
It’s just the latest sign that the launch of a whole ecosystem of ETFs has done little to buttress bitcoin against the whims of mercurial investors.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
Mr. Strausbaugh notes that the artist often chose chess over painting, as the former contains “clear wins and losses, not subject to the whims of taste.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
This makes it sensitive to the whims of the sector.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
We change plans, go to plan B, interrupt conversations, go back on promises depending on his moods, his whims, his needs.
From "Wonder" by R. J. Palacio
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
