whim
/wɪm/
whim noun: a fanciful impulse, or sudden change of idea.
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Noun (1)
whim (countable and uncountable, plural whims)
- A fanciful impulse, or sudden change of idea.
- Let ev’ry Man enjoy his whim; / What’s He to Me, or I to him?1763, Charles Churchill, The Ghost, book IV, J. Coote, →OCLC, page 137
- “No, it is not for a wager; it is a whim of mine, which I fancy from the tone of your conversation you could understand, being apparently somewhat whimsical yourself.”
- “So far as whim goes, be assured of my sympathy.”1873, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- lark
- A large capstan or vertical drum turned by horse power or steam power, for raising ore or water, etc., from mines, or for other purposes.
Verb
whim (third-person singular simple present whims, present participle whimming, simple past and past participle whimmed)
- To be seized with a whim; to be capricious.
Noun (2)
whim (plural whims)
- A bird, the Eurasian wigeon.
Noun (3) capitalized: WHIM
WHIM (uncountable)
- Initialism of warm-hot intergalactic medium.
whim meaning in Arabic
whim in Arabic
- fanciful impulse
- نَزْوَة nazwa
Examples of whim in a sentence
- […]the unholy stone whereon Tess had been compelled by Alec d’Urberville, in his whim of reformation, to swear the strange oath that she would never wilfully tempt him again.1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London...
- […]“I am sorry to make you the victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life, Watson, I simply can’t leave that case in this condition.1904 September, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure...
- “You’re either with me or you’re against me” became Dany’s credo, and those against her were an ever-changing multitude to be determined solely by her whims.2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club...
- In an internet-dominated world where vain techlords rule us by whim, sovereign governments seem reduced to the role of rearguard guerrillas.2025 October 4, Van Badham, “In a world where techlords rule us by whim, Australia’s stance against deepfakes is reason to celebrate”, in...
Synonyms of whim
10 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of whim
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | whims |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | whims |
| present participle | whimming |
| past participle | whimmed |
| past | whimmed |
Origin of whim
Clipping of whim-wham.
Compare whimbrel.
Words formed from whim
- at the whim of
- on a whim
- whim gin
- whim shaft
Words that rhyme with whim
Questions about whim
- What does whim mean?
- Whim means a fanciful impulse, or sudden change of idea.
- What is whim in Arabic?
- Whim in Arabic is نَزْوَة (nazwa). See Whim meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use whim in a sentence?
- […]the unholy stone whereon Tess had been compelled by Alec d’Urberville, in his whim of reformation, to swear the strange oath that she would never wilfully tempt him again.
- What part of speech is whim?
- Whim can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce whim?
- Whim is pronounced /wɪm/.
- What is the plural of whim?
- The plural of whim is whims.
Words near whim in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whim (page history and authors); WHIM (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-whim.wav.
Cite this entry: “whim.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whim. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.