velleity
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
From Medieval Latin velleitās, from Latin velle (“wish, will”).
Pronunciation [edit]
- IPA: /vɛˈliːɪti/
Noun [edit]
velleity (plural velleities)
- The lowest degree of desire or volition, with no effort to act.
- 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow:
- This connoisseuse of “splendid weaknesses”, run not by any lust or even velleity but by vacuum: by the absence of human hope.
- 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow:
- A slight wish not followed by any effort to obtain.
- 1919, The Times, 24 Oct 1919, p.12 col. A:
- The debate in the House of Lords would convert the impartial listener from any velleity towards single-chamber government.
- 2006, Howard Jacobson, Kalooki Nights, Vintage 2007, p. 372:
- Who could have imagined then, in Crumpsall, that the ancient Jewish hope, ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ – for so long more a velleity than a hope, the feeblest and most unanticipated of anticipations – would be realised in their lifetime and that they would be able to stand here, under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers, but otherwise unimpeded, together?
- 1919, The Times, 24 Oct 1919, p.12 col. A:
Translations [edit]
lowest degree of desire
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slight wish with no effort to obtain
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