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willy-nilly - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From will I, nill I (also with ye or he instead of I), meaning “[if] I am willing, [or if] I am not willing.” See will (“to desire, wish”), nill (“to not desire, to be unwilling”).[1]

willy-nilly (comparative more willy-nilly, superlative most willy-nilly)

  1. Whether desired or not; without regard for the consequences or the wishes of those affected; whether willingly or unwillingly.
    Synonyms: (archaic) nilly-willy, nolens volens

    Some writers chasing money churn out novels willy-nilly.

    • 1868, [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe, translated by Arthur Duke Coleridge, Egmont. A Tragedy. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, act II, page 40:

      Whenever I see a long handsome neck, willy nilly, the thought will come uppermost—What a capital neck for carving! Those cursed executions! One can't rid one's mind of them.

    • 1869 April 1, A. A. D., “Twelve Scenes in a Young Lady’s Life. No. IV. A Spring Ramble.”, in The Young Englishwoman. A Volume of Pure Literature, New Fashions, and Pretty Needlework Patterns, volume III, London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, […], →OCLC, stanza 1, page 220, column 1:

      I'll own I'm very glad he's come— / To hide my feelings would be silly— / You see I'm not so shy as some, / My thoughts will come out "willy-nilly."

    • 1889, Walter Besant, “A Slight Thing at the Best”, in For Faith and Freedom […], volume II, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 243:

      [I]f you love him not, then you can love me, and, therefore, can come to please yourself, willy-nilly. What! am I to be thwarted in such a trifle? Willy-nilly, I say, I will marry thee. Come—we waste the time.

    • 1895 January, Thomas Hardy, “Hearts Insurgent”, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume XC, number DXXXVI, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, chapter VIII, page 194, column 2:

      He says he shall come for me willy-nilly, and father and mother say I must have him! But I don't want to—because—because—I love you best!

    • 1948 August, Aldous Huxley, “The Script”, in Ape and Essence, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 154:

      And, while he sleeps, the indwelling Compassion preserves him, willy nilly, from the suicide which, in his waking hours, he has tried so frantically hard to commit.

  2. (idiomatic) Seemingly at random; haphazardly.

    The novel Alice in Wonderland describes a place where things happen willy-nilly.

whether desired or not; without regard for consequences or wishes of those affected

willy-nilly (comparative more willy-nilly, superlative most willy-nilly)

  1. Whether willing or unwilling.
    Synonym: (archaic) nilly-willy

    • 1877, Alfred Tennyson, Harold: A Drama, London: Henry S. King & Co., →OCLC, Act V, scene v, page 129:

      [S]omeone saw thy willy-nilly nun / Vying a tress against our golden fern.

    • 1882, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Promise of May”, in Locksley Hall Sixty Years After etc., London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1886, →OCLC, Act II, page 119:

      O my God, if man be only / A willy-nilly current of sensations— / Reaction needs must follow revel—yet— / Why feel remorse, he, knowing that he must have / Moved in the iron grooves of Destiny?

that happens whether willingly or unwillingly