3 uses
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Definition
a sudden desire that arises without any logical explanation
- 'twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old.Chapters 16-18 -- The Ship; The Ramadan; His Mark (56% in)
- A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common-sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage.Chapters 70-72 -- The Sphynx; The Jeroboam's Story; The Monkey-Rope (32% in)
- It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.Chapters 73-75 -- Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; The Sperm Whale's Head, The Right Whale's Head (61% in)
There are no more uses of "whim" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
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