willy‐nillyの英語

別の表記

• willy nilly

語源

From will I, nill I (“if I want, if I don't want”); also as will he, nill he and will ye, nill ye. See will (“to desire, to wish, to be willing”), nill (“to not desire, to not wish, to be unwilling”). Compare Latin velim nōlim (“if I desire it or not”, “willy nilly”).

Compare English harum-scarum of the same meaning.

発音

• enPR: wĭl′ē-nĭl′ē
• (Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA: /ˌwɪl.iːˈnɪl.iː/
• (General American, Canada, Scotland) IPA: /ˌwɪl.iˈnɪl.i/

• (New Zealand) IPA: /ˌwəl.iːˈnəl.iː/
• (India) IPA: /ˌwil.iːˈnil.iː/
• 韻: -ɪli
• ハイフネーション: wil‧ly-nil‧ly

副詞

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

1. Whether desired or not; without regard for consequences or wishes of those affected; whether willingly or unwillingly.

   Synonyms: (archaic) nilly-willy, nolens volens

   • 1868, [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe, translated by Arthur Duke Coleridge, Egmont. A Tragedy. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, act II, page 40:

     Whenever I see a long handsome neck, willy nilly, the thought will come uppermost—What a capital neck for carving! Those cursed executions! One can't rid one's mind of them.

   • 1889, Walter Besant, “A Slight Thing at the Best”, in For Faith and Freedom […], volume II, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 243:

     [I]f you love him not, then you can love me, and, therefore, can come to please yourself, willy-nilly. What! am I to be thwarted in such a trifle? Willy-nilly, I say, I will marry thee. Come—we waste the time.

   • 1954, Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, 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.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:willy-nilly.
2. (idiomatic) Seemingly at random; haphazardly.

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

   Some writers chasing money churn out novels willy-nilly.

形容詞

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

1. That happens whether willingly or unwillingly.

   Synonym: (archaic) nilly-willy

   • 1877, Alfred Tennyson, Harold: A Drama, London: Henry S. King & Co., →OCLC, Act V, scene v, page 129:

     [S]omeone saw thy willy-nilly nun / Vying a tress against our golden fern.

   • 1882, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Promise of May”, in Locksley Hall Sixty Years After etc., London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1886, →OCLC, Act II, page 119:

     O my God, if man be only / A willy-nilly current of sensations— / Reaction needs must follow revel—yet— / Why feel remorse, he, knowing that he must have / Moved in the iron grooves of Destiny?

2. Seemingly random; haphazard; arbitrary.

参照

Further reading

• willy nilly (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Michael Quinion (created March 1, 2003, last updated November 19, 2011), “Willy-nilly”, in World Wide Words.

アナグラム

• nilly-willy