What's the difference between idea and whimsy?

Idea


Definition:

  • (n.) The transcript, image, or picture of a visible object, that is formed by the mind; also, a similar image of any object whatever, whether sensible or spiritual.
  • (n.) A general notion, or a conception formed by generalization.
  • (n.) Hence: Any object apprehended, conceived, or thought of, by the mind; a notion, conception, or thought; the real object that is conceived or thought of.
  • (n.) A belief, option, or doctrine; a characteristic or controlling principle; as, an essential idea; the idea of development.
  • (n.) A plan or purpose of action; intention; design.
  • (n.) A rational conception; the complete conception of an object when thought of in all its essential elements or constituents; the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract.
  • (n.) A fiction object or picture created by the imagination; the same when proposed as a pattern to be copied, or a standard to be reached; one of the archetypes or patterns of created things, conceived by the Platonists to have excited objectively from eternity in the mind of the Deity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Virtually every developed country has some form of property tax, so the idea that valuing residential property is uniquely difficult, or that it would be widely evaded, is nonsense.
  • (2) In this book, he dismisses Freud's idea of penis envy - "Freud got it spectacularly wrong" - and said "women don't envy the penis.
  • (3) A backbench policy advisory group will be established to develop ideas.
  • (4) The idea that 80% of an engineer's time is spent on the day job and 20% pursuing a personal project is a mathematician's solution to innovation, Brin says.
  • (5) More disturbing than his ideas was Malema's style and tone.
  • (6) These data, compared with literature findings, support the idea that intratumoral BCG instillation of bladder cancer permits a longer disease-free period than other therapeutical approaches.
  • (7) The starting point is the idea that the current system, because it works against biodiversity but fails to increase productivity, is broken.
  • (8) Unlikely, he laughs: "We were founded on the idea of distributing information as far as possible."
  • (9) On 17 December Clegg will set out his own script for the year ahead, testing the idea that coalition governments can function even as the two parties clearly show their separate colours.
  • (10) This is about the best experience for our users: the idea that the experience was lacking, the innovation was lacking and we weren't reaching that ubiquity."
  • (11) Bose grew up with the idea, as the child of a well-to-do Bengali family in Kolkata.
  • (12) The observations support the idea that the function of pericytes in the choriocapillaris, the major source of nutrition for the retinal photoreceptors, resides in their contractility, and that pericytes do not remove necrotic endothelium during capillary atrophy.
  • (13) He was really an English public schoolboy, but I welcome the idea of people who are in some ways not Scottish, yet are committed to Scotland.
  • (14) Differences in scar depression also supported the idea of more stretching in the Dexon group.
  • (15) These results are consistent with the idea that RPE pigment dispersion is triggered by a substance that diffuses from the retina at light onset.
  • (16) These conclusions are consistent with those obtained from other techniques and support the idea that the effects of dopamine agonists on the activity of dopamine neurons and globus pallidus cells can provide an indication of the relative selectivity of these drugs for pre- or postsynaptic dopamine receptors.
  • (17) They also dismiss those who suggest that the current record-low interest rates mean countries could safely stimulate growth by raising their borrowing levels higher: Economists simply have little idea how long it will be until rates begin to rise.
  • (18) These results favour the idea that the factor present in peak II fraction might behave as an ouabain-like substance.
  • (19) You could also chat to local estate agents to get an idea of what kind of extension, if any, would appeal to buyers in your area.
  • (20) When the alternatives are considered, it seems most consistent with Piaget's ideas to regard both cognitive and affective phenomena as problem-solving organizations.

Whimsy


Definition:

  • (n.) A whim; a freak; a capricious notion, a fanciful or odd conceit.
  • (n.) A whim.
  • (n.) A whimsey.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Josie Long Watching Josie Long evolve from purveyor of childlike whimsy to political agitator has been one of the pleasures of the last few festivals.
  • (2) Irrespective of which will win, four of them can be categorised, as austere arthouse ( Amour ), the higher whimsy ( Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Life of Pi ), and customary US family angst ( Silver Linings Playbook ).
  • (3) Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Reporter, on the other hand, calls it "a fugacious bit of whimsy that can only be judged minor Woody Allen".
  • (4) Having to work with real life events keeps him from the shark-jumping flights of whimsy he employs elsewhere in his oeuvre.
  • (5) Each floor has been shaped by a different team of designers - Cibic and Partners, Stanton Williams, Eldridge Smerin and Future Systems - adding a touch of near-gravity here, whimsy there and pure theatre elsewhere.
  • (6) "It's very important to hold on to our whimsy," he says when I ask him about it.
  • (7) However, Keating's highly contrived plots and acute sense of whimsy failed to find favour in the US.
  • (8) Whenever his writing threatens to descend into the period's standard responses of disdain or whimsy, his ear catches the unique accent of an ordinary voice and elevates it to the dignity of print.
  • (9) But the narrative skips along, lightened by jokes and whimsies.
  • (10) Under the new name Mumford & Sons (a bit of nu-folk whimsy: no blood relations here), their earliest gigs, remembers Lovett, "were awful.
  • (11) Alice has all the makings of a long-term classic: a bold, funny and mercifully whimsy-free take on Lewis Carroll, accompanied by the fizzing musical panache of Joby Talbot’s score.
  • (12) At the same time, he largely dispensed with his breathless, gossamer sentences, which often teetered on the brink of preciousness and whimsy, and ushered in a style that was much leaner and more sinewy: "Dick!
  • (13) Her father was a country doctor who had seen his share of death and who liked to say there were only three subjects for art: sex, death and whimsy.
  • (14) The Edwardian classic by Lucy Maud Montgomery about a feisty, freckled orphan girl sent to live on the island unsurprisingly features heavily in PEI's tourist industry promotions, such that some shops resort to having Anne-free zones to lure visitors wearied of the whimsy.
  • (15) Amelie The Berkeley Repertory Theatre trades northern California cool for Montmartre whimsy when it offers this musical, adapted from the Jean-Pierre Jeunet film.
  • (16) When in the mid- 1930s he went to Mousehole, the Cornish fishing village, to pursue primitive realism, it was because "I could see in it Rousseau, Modigliani, Bonnard and Matisse – these painters had more meaning for me than the whimsy of Paul Klee" (Dylan Thomas liked Klee).
  • (17) For all the lovers of his whimsy, there are equally ardent critics.
  • (18) (Second place in that poll are the Dresden Dolls, but I guess MLB wasn't big on pretentious open letters and forced whimsy.)
  • (19) I caught my breath and took a seat, giving up on any whimsy about first class.
  • (20) Industry insiders I talked to thought the next generation of comics would bring in a new era of whimsy and mild observation.