Self-will
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The quality of being willful and ignoring opposition. uncountable
"This Marian principle indicates that women ought to divest themselves of self-will in order to be obedient to the word of God as articulated by male spokesmen."
- 2 the trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior wordnet
- 3 resolute adherence to your own ideas or desires wordnet
Example
More examples"Let not my soul go into their counsel, nor my glory be in their assembly: because in their fury they slew a man, and in their self-will they undermined a wall."
Etymology
From Middle English self-wil, self-wille, from Old English sylfwill, selfwill, selfwille (“self-will”), from Proto-West Germanic *selbawilljō, from Proto-Germanic *selbawiljô (“self-will”), equivalent to self- + will. Cognate with Old High German selbwillo, selpwillo, Old Norse sjalfvili.
More for "self-will"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.