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Whimsy vs Vagary - What's the difference?

whimsy | vagary | Related terms |

Whimsy is a related term of vagary.


As nouns the difference between whimsy and vagary

is that whimsy is a quaint and fanciful idea a whim playfully odd behaviour while vagary is an erratic, unpredictable occurrence or action.

As a verb whimsy

is to fill with whimsies or whims; to make fantastic; to craze.

whimsy

English

Alternative forms

* whimsey

Noun

(en-noun)
  • A quaint and fanciful idea. A whim. Playfully odd behaviour.
    • The whimsies of poets and painters. — Ray.
    Men's folly, whimsies , and inconstancy. — Swift.
    Mistaking the whimseys of a feverish brain for the calm revelation of truth. — Bancroft.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=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. }}
  • An impulsive, illogical or capricious character.
  • (mining) A whim.

    • Verb

  • To fill with whimsies or whims; to make fantastic; to craze.
  • * J. Fletcher
    • To have a man's brain whimsied with his wealth.

    vagary

    English

    Noun

    (vagaries)
  • An erratic, unpredictable occurrence or action.
  • * 1871 , , At Last: A Christmas In The West Indies , ch. 8:
    • It now turns out that the Pitch Lake, like most other things, owes its appearance on the surface to no convulsion or vagary at all, but to a most slow, orderly, and respectable process of nature, by which buried vegetable matter, which would have become peat, and finally brown coal, in a temperate climate, becomes, under the hot tropic soil, asphalt and oil.
  • An impulsive or illogical desire; a caprice or whim.
  • * 1905 , , War of the Classes , Preface:
    • And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,—still a vagary of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable.

    Derived terms

    * vagarity * vagarious

    See also

    * vaguery