n. An abbreviation of the personal name William.A As an independent verb.To wish; desire; want; be willing to have (a certain thing done): now chiefly used in the subjunctive (optative) preterit form would governing a clause: as, I would that the day were at hand. When in the first person the subject is frequently omitted: as, would that ye had listened to us!Would in optative expressions is often followed by a dative, with or without to, noting the person or power by whom the wish may be fulfilled: hence the phrases would (to) God, would (to) heaven, etc.To have a wish or desire; be willing.B. As an auxiliary, followed by an infinitive without to.To wish, want, like, or agree (to do, etc.); to be (am, is, are, was, etc.) willing (to do, etc.): noting desire, preference, consent, or, negatively, refusal.To be (am, is, are, etc.) determined (to do, etc.): said when one insists on or persists in being or doing something; hence, must, as a matter of will or pertinacity; do (emphatic auxiliary) from choice, wilfulness, determination, or persistence.To make (it) a habit or practice (to do, etc.); be (am, is, are, etc.) accustomed (to do, etc.); do usually: noting frequent or customary action.To be (am, is, are, etc.) sure (to do, etc.); do undoubtedly, inevitably, or of necessity; ought or have (to do, etc.); must: used in incontrovertible or general statements, and often, especially in provincial use, forming a verbphrase signifying no more than the simple verb: as, I'm thinking this will be (that is, this is) your daughter.To be (am, is, are, etc.) ready or about (to do, etc.): said of one on the point of doing something not necessarily accomplished.In future and conditional constructions, to be (am, is, are, etc.) (to do, etc.): in general noting in the first person a promise or determination, and in the second and third mere assertion of a future occurrence without reference to the will of the subject, other verb-phrases being compounded with the auxiliary shall. For a more detailed discrimination between will and shall, see shall, B., 2.In such constructions will is sometimes found where precision would require shall. See shall, B., final note.[Would is often used for will in order to avoid a dogmatic style or to soften blunt or harsh assertions, questions, etc.In all its senses the auxiliary will may be used with an ellipsis of the following infinitive.n. Wish; desire; pleasure; inclination; choice.n. That which is wished for or desired; express wish; purpose; determination.n. Wish; request; command.n. Expressed wish with regard to the disposal of one's property, or the like, after death; the document containing such expression of one's wishes; especially, in law, the legal declaration of a person's intentions, to take effect after his death.n. Discretion; free or arbitrary disposal; sufferance; mercy.n. The faculty of conscious, and especially of deliberate, action.n. The act of willing; the act of determining a choice or forming a purpose; volition.n. At pleasure; at discretion. To hold an estate at the will of another is to enjoy the possession at his pleasure, and be liable to be ousted at any time by the lessor or proprietor. See estate at will, under estate.n. Especially— A testamentary act by two persons jointly uniting in the same instrument, as their will, to take effect after the death of both.n. A similar instrument to take effect as to each on his or her death. These two classes are more properly termed joint or conjoint.n. Wills made in connection by two persons pursuant to a compact, binding each to the other to make the dispositions of property thus declared.n. Wills made to bequeath the effects of the one first dying to the survivor. These two classes, and particularly the last, are more appropriately termed mutual. The legal effect of such wills is often a matter of doubt.n. The power of doing right on all occasions.n. That freedom of which we have an immediate consciousness in action. This is, however, only the consciousness of being able to overcome some unspecified resistance to some unspecified extent, which implies and is implied in the fact of resistance, and is in fact but an aspect of the sense of action and reaction.n. The power of acting from an inward spontaneity, not altogether dominated by motives. This is what most of the metaphysical advocates of the freedom of the will specifically contend for. It is a limitation of the action of causality, even in the material world. Some would restrict the spontaneous power of the mind to making particles swerve without variation of their vis viva; but this is untenable, since the law of action and reaction, which would thus be vitiated, is far more securely proved than that of the conservation of energy, the evidence for which is imperfect, while the objections to it are weighty. It is contended on the one hand that such spontaneity is an indispensable condition of moral action; and on the other that, if it exists, it has no direct reference to morality except this that, so far as a being is spontaneous in this sense, he is free from the moral law as well as from that of causation, and that there is neither sense nor justice in holding him responsible for mere sporadic effects of pure non-cause. Responsibility, it is argued, ought to imply that a man's conduct can be regulated by principles as efficient causes, and is not free from the influence of causation.n. Sincerity; right intention.To wish; desire.To communicate or express a wish to; desire; request; direct; tell; bid; order; command.To determine by act of choice; decide; decree; ordain; hence, to intend; purpose.To dispose of by will or testament; give as a legacy; bequeath: as, he willed the farm to his nephew.To bring under the influence or control of the will of another; subject to the power of another's will.To wish; desire; prefer; resolve; determine; decree.To exercise the will.Astray; wrong; at a loss; bewildered.To wander; go astray; be lost, at a loss, or bewildered.
