whifty

English

Adjective

whifty (comparative whiftier or more whifty, superlative whiftiest or most whifty)

1. Offbeat; slightly kooky or whimsical.
   • 1985, Arts Magazine - Volume 59, page 36:

     The result isn't so much a joke as a whifty vision.

   • 1986, Joe Baltake, Jack Lemmon: his films and career, page 93:

     It's a fragile, whifty to-do -- never serious, never very funny --- which likens love to witchcraft.

   • 1987, Iron Age Metals Producer, page 5:

     On a happier but just as whifty note, I recall pointing out to the synergism aficianados at the top of a company that one of its divisions bore no relation to the parent company or its other divisions.

   • 1988, Puerto Del Sol - Volume 24, page 128:

     You don't pilot the ship of an experimental community, a congregation of artists, social idealists, and whifty dreamers infected with some of the same kookiness that did in Brook Farm without weathering certain human squalls.

   • 2007, Peter Wild, The Grumbling Gods: A Palm Springs Reader, →ISBN, page 106:

     John C. Van Dyke's aesthetic soarings about the arid lands passed on whifty ruminations on coyotes, rattlesnakes, and greasewood, but they were horrors of misinformation.

2. Lacking in mental focus, clarity, and sense; illogical.
   • 1979, United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and, Women's Dependency on Prescription Drugs:

     I want to say that I think the doctors don't tell women about the side effects because they think that we are so whifty we would develop these side effects out of our own minds, something like that.

   • 1995, Joe Queenan, The unkindest cut:

     He said he was kind of whifty. Kind of whifty? Whifty. Like . . . out there.

   • 1996 November 5, TaxService, “Liberal Menagerie”, in alt.politics.elections (Usenet):

     He's a liar filled with insinuation, innuendo, filth, propaganda, and has a platform that can influence weak minds and moral degenerates who are too whifty to be able to draw logical conclusions based on fact.

   • 2000 August 1, Le Critic!, “Satanism?”, in alt.religion.end-times.prophecies (Usenet):

     A satanist is just another whifty fundamentalist.

3. Lightheaded.
   • 1979, Toby Thompson, The '60s Report, page 147:

     Dak Seang's senior officer, a captain, had not been above ground for thirty days. "A bit whifty," Henry recalled. The man was terrified.

   • 2001, Barbara Rollin, Ask!, →ISBN:

     She frantically summoned the flight attendant and gasped, “Whifty, I'm feeling whifty.”

   • 2002 November 11, Margaret Leber, “What does IT feel like?”, in alt.support.srs (Usenet):

     As it was, I was so whifty (until the meds were ramped down towards the end of the week) that Teletubbies seemed both engaging and entertaining.

4. Not steady; gusty or insubstantial.
   • 1997, Condé Nast's Traveler - Volume 32, page 235:

     The people working at the spa were all glowy and whifty, and in fact they did smell very good.

   • 2008, John Ingram Bryan, James Clinton Morrison, A Jolly Wake and Other Stories: Growing Up on Prince Edward Island, page 61:

     Next morning the snow was falling fast from a dark leaden sky, and the wind was so whifty and the prospects so doubtful that Da feared it might become a blizzard and suggested that it might be advisable not to venture forth after fire wood that day.

   • 2013 May 18, “England v New Zealand, first Test: day two, Alan Tyers & Jonathan Liew”, in The Telegraph:

     First ball of the over he gets one to swing, it's a slow hooping sort of a swing in a nice banana shape outside off and young Bairstow nearly obliges with a really poor shot, no foot movement, just a whifty waft at it, and lucky for him he doesn't connect.