willing

• (adjective): Old English willende, present participle of willan
• (noun): Old English willung, from willian

• IPA^(key): /ˈwɪlɪŋ/

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• Hyphenation: will‧ing
• Rhymes: -ɪlɪŋ

willing (comparative more willing, superlative most willing)

1. Ready to do something that is not (can't be expected as) a matter of course.

   If my boyfriend isn't willing to change his drinking habits, I will split up with him.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     In the eyes of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke the apotheosis of the Celebrity was complete. The people of Asquith were not only willing to attend the house-warming, but had been worked up to the pitch of eagerness. The Celebrity as a matter of course was master of ceremonies.

   • 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎:

     "Of course, the ventilation is awful. We pump the air down, but two-hour shifts are the most the men can do - and they are willing lads too."

   • 1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, pages 3, 5:

     Coal-eaters they may have been, but a more willing or harder working Atlantic engine was never designed.

   • 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:

     Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.

   • 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43:

     Typically for the 'get-on-with-it' era, the railway and military worked like demons to restore the vital rail link. The crater was rapidly filled in and the earth tamped solid, the wreckage was removed by breakdown trains, new rails and sleepers were rushed forward by willing hands, and US Army bulldozers piled in. By 2020 on the same day, both tracks were open for traffic again where there had been a gaping pit just hours before.

• agreeable, agreeing, consenting, voluntary; See also Thesaurus:acquiescent

willing (plural willings)

1. (rare or obsolete) The execution of a will.

willing

1. present participle and gerund of will

• “willing”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “willing”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.