whimsic

comparative more whimsic · superlative most whimsic

1. rareRare form of whimsical.

   […] Dutch whirling, whimsic chair, / Turning more swift than unrestrained air; […]

   1684, “Behold the Wonders of Almighty God. [From a MS. in a private Collection.]”, in Edward F[rancis] Rimbault, editor, Old Ballads Illustrating the Great Frost of 1683-4 and the Fair on the River Thames, London: […] for the Percy Society, by T. Richards, […], published February 1844, page 29

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   Even this Spark five terms at least, before / H’ has taken a degree; and full Ten more / Before he has deserv’d it; shall adore / Those Ancient Sots, whose whimsick brain alone / Found out Dame Nature’s ways before unknown, / Whereby she acted, or at least she might have done.

   1696, “A Letter to a Friend, Concerning an University Life”, in The Second, Fourth, and Seventh Satyrs of Monsieur Boileau Imitated, with Some Other Poems and Translations Written upon Several Occasions, London: […] R. Sare […] and H. Hindmarsh […], page 125

   My Phyllis, now, capricious maid, / And whimsic as the fickle breeze, / Within an hour has oft betrayed / A score of personalities.

   1908, Truth, page 693

   We strolled through quaintly crooked little side streets, so rich in casual and whimsic architecture, and drove over the brown hills, where rabbits occasionally dashed to cover, and the impudent crow patrolled the horizon.

   1918, Sidney Williams, The Eastern Window, Boston, Mass.: Marshall Jones Company, page 91

   Whimsic fantasy, grub fact, pure senseless music—none in itself would do; to embody all and rise above each, in a work neither longfaced nor idiotly grinning, but adventuresome, passionately humored, merry with the pain of insight, wise and smiling in the terror of life—that was my calm ambition.

   1968, John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →LCCN, page 198

   Harry Potter can now feel at home in California, shopping in Whimsic Alley, a re-creation of the mystical London Street where the famous wizard buys his school supplies.

   2005, Jan Friedman, Eccentric California, Bradt Travel Guides Ltd; The Globe Pequot Press Inc, →ISBN, page 126