willy-nilly

English

Alternative forms

• willy nilly

Etymology

Originally ‘will he, nill he’ or ‘will ye, nill ye’, meaning ‘be he willing, be he unwilling’; see will, nill.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˌwɪliˈnɪli/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adverb

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

1. Whether desired or not.
   • 1954, Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, Chatto & Windus, page 36:

     The outer world is what we wake up to every morning of our lives, is the place where, willy-nilly, we must try to make our living.

   • 1894, Thomas Hardy, Hearts Insurgent, in Harper's Magazine, Volume XC, Number 536, page 195:

     He says he shall come for me willy-nilly, and father and mother say I must have him!

2. (idiomatic) Without regard for consequences or the will of those affected.

   So people chasing money churn out novels willy-nilly.

3. Seemingly at random, haphazardly

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

Translations

whether desired or not

• Armenian: ուզած-չուզած (hy) (uzac-čʿuzac)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin 无论愿否 (cmn)

• Czech: chtě nechtě (cs), volky nevolky (cs)
• Dutch: willens nillens (nl)
• Finnish: halusimme tai emme (fi)
• French: bon gré mal gré (fr)
• German: volens nolens (de)
• Hungarian: akár tetszik, akár nem (hu), ha tetszik, ha nem (hu)
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: volens nolens (la)
• Lithuanian: nori nenori (lt)

• Portuguese: querendo ou não (pt), queira ou não queira (pt)
• Russian: волей-неволей (ru) (vólej-nevólej), хочешь не хочешь (ru) (xóčeš' ne xóčeš')
• Scottish Gaelic: a dheòin no a dh'aindeoin (gd)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: хтио не хтио (sh), хтео не хтео (sh) (hteo ne hteo)

  Latin: htio ne htio (sh), hteo ne hteo (sh)

• Spanish: quiera o no quiera (es)
• Tatar: irekle-ireksez (tt) (irekle-ireksez)
• Turkish: ister istemez (tr)

without regard for consequences

• Finnish: miten sattuu (fi)
• German: wohl oder übel (de)

• Spanish: sea como sea (es)

seemingly at random, haphazardly

• Czech: nahodile (cs)
• Finnish: miten sattuu (fi)

• Portuguese: de qualquer maneira (pt), de qualquer jeito (pt)
• Spanish: de cualquier manera (es)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Albanian: do s'do

• Greek: θέλοντας και μη (el) (thélontas kai mi), με το ζόρι (el) (me to zóri)

Synonyms

• nolens volens

References

• For usage examples of this term, see the citations page.