at will

See also: at-will

English

Pronunciation

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Prepositional phrase

at will

1. (idiomatic) at one's preference; as one sees fit

   I'm writing my book at will - there's no deadline or minimum word count.

   • 1460-1500, The Towneley Playsː

     I give the wit, I give the strength, of all thou seest, of breadth and length; thou shalt be wonder-wise, mirth and joy to have at will, all thy liking to fulfill, and dwell in paradise.

   • 1960 December, “The first hundred 25 kV a.c. electric locomotives for B.R.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 727:

     [...] there is no special incentive to adopt a design on the latest French pattern, in which the gear ratio can be changed at will to permit higher tractive efforts on freight duties as an alternative to higher speeds on passenger duties.

   • 2013, Ben Smith, "[1]", BBC Sport, 19 October 2013:

     And yet, United always carried the greater threat. Their movement in attack constantly confounded Southampton's defenders, with Rooney, Van Persie and Januzaj swapping places and eluding markers at will.

Derived terms

• fire at will
• tenant at will
• employment at will

Translations

at one's preference

• Catalan: a discreció
• Esperanto: laŭvole
• German: nach Belieben

• Italian: a volontà, a piacere, a piacimento
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: etter (eget) forgodtbefinnende

• Polish: dowolnie (pl), według woli
• Spanish: a discreción

References

• “at will”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “will”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• wait'll