His whim was law.

ECONOMIST: The last days of Mobutu

Mr Mortimer nonetheless luxuriates in what he has: grants to chantries and hospitals, rewards for service, reports from ambassadors, requests for provisioning (all those thousands of longbows, arrows, barrels of beer, sides of beef) and the ceaseless pawning of a large part of Henry's treasure to pay for his whim of a war.

ECONOMIST: Henry V, English hero

Mr Cameron, though, is loth to sacrifice his partnership with the Lib Dems at the whim of malcontents whose recipe for electoral success is mysterious.

ECONOMIST: The politics of Heathrow

Much to the chagrin of the servant, the individual he committed to serve upon his arrival to the colonies could send him off on a whim to much less favorable circumstances.

FORBES: National Letter of Indenture: Why College Athletes are Similar to Indentured Servants of Colonial Times

Rene, a young outcast who has lost his short-term memory, steals a sports coupe on a whim.

NEWYORKER: Winter Sleepers

But his father, a high school history teacher, moved the family to southern California in 1954 on a whim.

FORBES: On The Cover/Top Stories

An Italian immigrant to the U.S. with a PhD in neuroscience from George Mason university, Scorcioni -- who had never built any software before -- drove to Las Vegas from his home in San Diego to network at CES. He happened upon the Palms and, on a whim, entered the hackathon.

CNN: Hackers and kitty ears a wake-up call to CES