willynillyとは 意味・読み方・使い方

別の表記

• willy nilly

語源

Literally, “Be one willing to, be one unwilling to”. From will I, nill I (“whether I want to or not”, with both verbs in the subjunctive), reflecting the old (viz. pre-Great Vowel Shift) pronunciation of I as ee, not yet as eye. Conflated with will he, nill he (with silent h) and will ye, nill ye (with yod dropping), meaning likewise “be he/you willing or not”.

For more, refer to the individual component words:

• will (“to desire, to wish, to be willing”) (archaic)
• nill (“to not desire or wish, to be unwilling”) (obsolete)

Compare Latin volens nolens, velim nōlim and English harum-scarum, which have this same meaning.

発音

• enPR: wĭl′ē-nĭl′ē
• (Received Pronunciation, 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: nilly-willy (archaic), 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: nilly-willy (archaic)

   • 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

• “willy-nilly, adv. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2015.
• “willy-nilly, adv.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “willy-nilly”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

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