will

English Online Dictionary. What means will‎? What does will mean?

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wɪl/
  • (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): [wɪɫ]
• • (l-vocalizing: UK, General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): [wɪo̯], [wɪʊ̯]
• Rhymes: -ɪl

Etymology 1

From Middle English willen, wullen, wollen, from Old English willan (“to want”), from Proto-West Germanic *willjan, from Proto-Germanic *wiljaną, from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“to choose, wish”).

Cognate with Dutch willen, Low German willen, German wollen, Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk vilja, Norwegian Bokmål ville, Latin velle (“wish”, verb), Latin volo, French vouloir, Italian volere, and Albanian vel (“to satisfy, be stuffed”). The verb is not always distinguishable from Etymology 3, below.

Alternative forms

• 'll (contraction)
• vill, weel (pronunciation spelling)
• wil, wille, woll, wyll (obsolete)

Verb

will (third-person singular simple present will, present participle willing, simple past would, no past participle)

1. (auxiliary) Used to express the future tense, sometimes with an implication of volition or determination when used in the first person. Compare shall. [from 10th c.]
2. (auxiliary) To be able to, to have the capacity to. [from 14th c.]

3. (auxiliary) Expressing a present tense or perfect tense with some conditional or subjective weakening: "will turn out to", "must by inference". [from 15th c.]
4. (auxiliary) To habitually do (a given action). [from 9th c.]
5. (auxiliary) To choose or agree to (do something); used to express intention but without any temporal connotations, often in questions and negation. [from 10th c.]

6. (now uncommon or literary, transitive) To wish, desire (something). [chiefly 9th–19th c.]
7. (now rare, intransitive) To wish or desire (that something happen); to intend (that). [9th–19th c.]
8. (archaic) Implying will go.

Usage notes

• Commonly elided to the clitic 'll, and would also commonly elided to 'd. These are also short for shall and should (among other things).
• See also the usage notes at shall.
  • Historically, will is used as a future tense auxiliary only with second and third person subjects, while shall is used with the first person. The intent sense, on the other hand, reverses this, with will being used with the first person, and shall with the second and third. This distinction may still be upheld by some speakers, especially in the UK, or in legal documents.
  • Today, the person distinction is mostly lost, usually with both will and shall being used with interchangeable meaning. In particular, shall is used as a rarer or more archaic synonym of will, leaving the distinction between future and intent up to context or stress.
• Morphologically, the present tense is will and the past tense is would. In Early Modern English there was also a past participle would, but this is now obsolete.

  Malory: ‘Many tymes he myghte haue had her and he had wold’. John Done: ‘If hee had would, hee might easily [...] occupied the Monarchy.’

• Formerly, go could be elided after will along with an adverb expressing destination, e.g. "I'll to her lodgings" (Marlowe). Compare the omission of gehen in similar situations in modern German (i.e. with an auxiliary and a destination adverb), e.g. "Ich muss in die Schule", lit. "I must in(to) the school".
• The present participle willing does not apply to the uses of will as an auxiliary verb (those senses have no participles).
• The form of will with the enclitic -n't (or the present tense negative form of will in the analysis in which -n't is an inflectional suffix) is won't (“will not”) (rather than the form that would be expected based on a regular application of -n't, willn't), while the corresponding form of the past tense would is wouldn't.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• Appendix:English modal verbs
• Appendix:English tag questions

Etymology 2

From Middle English wille, from Old English willa (compare verb willian), from Proto-Germanic *wiljô (“desire, will”), from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“to choose, wish”). Cognate with Dutch wil, German Wille, Swedish vilja, Norwegian vilje.

Alternative forms

• wille (obsolete)

Noun

will (plural wills)

1. One's independent faculty of choice; the ability to be able to exercise one's choice or intention. [from 9th c.]

2. The act of choosing to do something; a person’s conscious intent or volition. [from 10th c.]
3. One's intention or decision; someone's orders or commands. [from 9th c.]

4. Firmity of purpose, fixity of intent

   Synonyms: determination, firmness, resoluteness, resolve
5. (law) A formal declaration of one's intent concerning the disposal of one's property and holdings after death; the legal document stating such wishes. [from 14th c.]

   Synonyms: testament, last will, last will and testament
6. (archaic) That which is desired; one's wish. [from 10th c.]
7. (archaic) Desire, longing. (Now generally merged with later senses.) [from 9th c.]

Derived terms

Collocations

(conscious intent or volition):

• a strong will

Descendants

• → Bengali: উইল (uil)

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English willen, from Old English willian (“to will”), from Proto-West Germanic *willjōn (“to will”), from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“to choose, wish”). Cognate with German Low German willen, German willen. The verb is not always distinguishable from Etymology 1, above.

Verb

will (third-person singular simple present wills, present participle willing, simple past and past participle willed or (rare) would)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To instruct (that something be done) in one's will. [from 9th c.]
2. (transitive) To bequeath (something) to someone in one's will (legal document). [from 15th c.]

4. (transitive) To exert one's force of will (intention) in order to compel, or attempt to compel, something to happen or someone to do something. [from 10th c.]

Synonyms

• (bequeath): bequeath, leave

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Cahuilla

Etymology

From Proto-Uto-Aztecan *wip.

Noun

wíll

1. fat, grease

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vɪl/

Verb

will

1. first/third-person singular present of wollen

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈvill/
• Rhymes: -ill
• Syllabification: will

Noun

will f

1. genitive plural of willa

Yola

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wɪɫ/
• Homophone: whil

Verb

will

1. Alternative form of woul (“will”)

Noun

will

1. Alternative form of woul (“will”)

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 59