Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of whimsicality
Explanation
When you decide to do something silly or unexpected just because it's fun and interesting rather than practical, you're displaying whimsicality! This means you're embracing the playful, unpredictable side of life. Whimsicality is the art of making choices based on fun and spontaneity rather than practicality. This whimsical trait shines through in the delight of wearing a brightly colored outfit on a gray day or taking a different route home just to explore. You’ll often find whimsicality in art that mixes unusual colors and shapes or in stories where reality takes a playful twist.
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:
Mixing the ironic whimsicality of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” with the premise and structure of “The Monkees,” “Conchords” was twice as delightful when it landed for being so unexpected and unpredictable.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 23, 2022
But Cho’s wry whimsicality, and compassion for her fallible characters, gives these familiar dilemmas a tender lilt.
From Seattle Times ● May 22, 2013
Mabey puts our obsession down to its whimsicality.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 8, 2013
Yet the whimsicality of the recording belies songs in which Ms. Apple wars with her lovers and, often, herself.
From New York Times ● May 30, 2012
Again and again he contrives to invest some perfectly trifling and commonplace incident with an air of whimsicality, and by so doing to make it at once realistic and remote.
From Chaucer and His Times by Grace E. Hadow
They are the newsworthy survivors of a long list of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, utterances, and doings of known people, and, so far as Miscellany is concerned, the whimsicalities and outrages of the unknown.
From Time Magazine Archive
To strengthen its hand in negotiations, the union began a campaign to dispel the notion that its members are an irresponsible lot given to ill-timed whimsicalities.
From Time Magazine Archive
In London, Christopher Robin Milne, 27, storybook hero of father A. A. Milne's famed whimsicalities, announced that this summer he would marry Lesley Selin-court, 22, a librarian.
From Time Magazine Archive
It had been the design of M. Delaruelle, who was much in love with the whimsicalities of his small realm, to elicit something comical; but not even he expected anything so perfect as the last.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
All the little whimsicalities, sentiments, little loves, and heart-longings of human beings are ever present in his plays.
From Contemporary One-Act Plays by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie
Definitions 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.
