whims

plural of whim

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of whims But elevating the whims of progressive activists and government bureaucrats above the wisdom of the marketplace has proven a costly mistake and undermined consumer choice. — Arkansas Online, 5 Oct. 2026 All of this makes the recent terminations tricky for OpenAI and shows that safety disclosures are still very much at the whims of the labs. — Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 5 Oct. 2026 This is hardly new, and scream queens, in particular, are often left to the whims of the internet. — Mariam Bagdady, Vogue, 29 Sep. 2026 And where they, too, are terrified by the whims of those above them. — Mark Lilla, The New York Review of Books, 29 Sep. 2026 There are many reasons the United States needs clear, stable regulations on artificial intelligence, rather than relying on the whims of a leader. — Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic, 14 Sep. 2026 Behold the plight of the Ryan Murphy character, cursed to behave nonsensically and flit wildly from plotline to plotline based on the writer’s whims. — Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 3 Sep. 2026 Although Muslims made up a third of India’s population, they were thinly spread across the country and in any new democratic system would almost always find themselves at the whims of the Hindu majority. — Literary Hub, 3 Sep. 2026 But an outdoor garden, no matter how beautiful and lovingly designed or how innovatively used in the menu, is susceptible to the whims of Miami’s humid, rainy, extraordinarily lengthy summers. — Connie Ogle, Miami Herald, 21 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for whims
Noun
  • Mesh, lace, metallic studs, crochet and tie-dye competed for attention, while fitted party dresses and washed denim leaned heavily on familiar notions of off-duty rock-chick dressing.
    — Rhonda Richford, Footwear News, 9 Oct. 2026
  • Credibility is affected deeply by strategic cultural assessments about superiority and inferiority, and notions about when, where, how and for whom the credibility matters.
    — Christopher Nichols, The Conversation, 9 Oct. 2026
Noun
  • Festivals, with their many equity pipers to pay, contend with further caprices.
    — Lauren Michele Jackson, New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2026
  • One needed Mother Nature to bestow upon brewers the right temperatures for making beer, and in the days before refrigeration and even thermometers, that meant that brewing was largely dictated by the caprices of the seasons.
    — Jay R. Brooks, Mercury News, 27 Feb. 2026
Noun
  • But finding one’s nerve means fighting the everyday vagaries of low self-esteem, depression, self-deception, insecurity, loss, never-ending grief, and narcissists.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Use the same term in connection with the mental vagaries of a gladiatorial spectacle?
    — Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2026
Noun
  • The words cut sharply into the jumble of to-do lists, fantasies, snippets of possible writing, worry, and leftover traces of postpartum depression that constituted my mind in the early months of 1993.
    — Via Scribner, Literary Hub, 9 Oct. 2026
  • His search gradually shifts from extraterrestrial fantasies toward the invisible outsiders living among us on Earth.
    — Chris Gardner, HollywoodReporter, 29 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • In honor of Valentine’s Day, Stephanie also has a story on the whimsies created by chocolate artist Chris Ford at his West Hollywood pop-up shop.
    — Bill Addison, Los Angeles Times, 14 Feb. 2026
  • In The Girlfriend, the truth is malleable, open to change based on our biases, judgments, whimsies, and desires.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 10 Sep. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Whims.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/whims. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.

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