VAGARY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does vagary mean? 

• VAGARY (noun)
  The noun VAGARY has 1 sense:

1. an unexpected and inexplicable change in something (in a situation or a person's behavior, etc.)

  Familiarity information: VAGARY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VAGARY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An unexpected and inexplicable change in something (in a situation or a person's behavior, etc.)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Context example:

he has dealt with human vagaries for many years

Hypernyms ("vagary" is a kind of...):

alteration; change; modification (an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another)

 Context examples 

Sometimes I think Wolf Larsen mad, or half-mad at least, what of his strange moods and vagaries.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Laurie turned the matter over in his mind so often that he soon brought himself to confess that he had been selfish and lazy, but then when a man has a great sorrow, he should be indulged in all sorts of vagaries till he has lived it down.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I am as confident of seeing Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself: but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table) has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been long in the practice of doing.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell Thomas Mugridge in the cabin, and at the same time complete an incident upon which I have already touched once or twice.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)