will2

 
Pronunciation: /wɪl/

noun

  • 1the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action: she has an iron will a battle of wills between children and their parents [mass noun]: an act of will
  • (also willpower) [mass noun] control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one’s own impulses: a stupendous effort of will
  • a deliberate or fixed desire or intention: Jane had not wanted them to stay against their will [with infinitive]: the will to live
  • the thing that one desires or ordains: Jane tells St. John that she could marry him if she only knew it was God’s will
  • 2a legal document containing instructions as to what should be done with one’s money and property after one’s death.

verb

[with object]
  • 1chiefly formal or literary intend, desire, or wish (something) to happen: their friendship flourished particularly because Adams willed it
  • [with object and infinitive] make or try to make (someone) do something or (something) happen by the exercise of mental powers: reluctantly he willed himself to turn and go back she stared into the fog, willing it to clear
  • 2 (will something to) bequeath something to (someone) by the terms of one’s will: his father willed the farm to Mr Timms
  • [with clause] leave specified instructions in one’s will: he willed that his body should be given to the hospital

Phrases

at will

at whatever time or in whatever way one pleases: he seemed to think he could walk in and out of her life at will

have a will of one's own

have a wilful character.

have one's will

archaic obtain what one wants.

if you will

said when politely asking someone to do or consider something: imagine, if you will, a typical silversmith’s shop

what you will

what you want or like: activists, campaigners, educators—call them what you will, they have a tough task in this country

where there's a will there's a way

proverb determination will overcome any obstacle.

with the best will in the world

however good one’s intentions (used to imply that success in a particular undertaking is unlikely although desired).

with a will

energetically and resolutely.

Derivatives

willed

adjective
[in combination]: a strong-willed woman

Origin:

Old English willa (noun), willian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch wil, German Wille (nouns), also to will1 and the adverb well1

There is considerable confusion about when to use shall and when will. The traditional rule in standard British English is that shall is used with first-person pronouns (I and we) to form the future tense, while will is used with second and third persons (you, he, she, it, they), e.g. I shall be late; she will not be there. When expressing a strong determination to do something the traditional rule is that will is used with the first person, and shall with the second and third persons, e.g. I will not tolerate this; you shall go to the ball. In practice, however, shall and will are today used more or less interchangeably in statements (though not in questions). Given that the forms are frequently contracted (we’ll, she’ll, etc.) there is often no need to make a choice between shall and will, another factor no doubt instrumental in weakening the distinction. The interchangeable use of shall and will is an acceptable part of standard modern British and US English.

Grammar

The traditional grammar rules are: Use shall with I and we. Use will with all other persons. Reverse this for emphasis: The sea shall not have them. Increasingly will is used across the board. Shall is by far the least common modal auxiliary verb; in conversation will is used fourteen times more frequently than shall (despite the frequency that I occurs in speech). The only occasion when shall is normally used with I and we is in questions: Shall I come with you? Using will in such questions is confined to dialect.