Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Obstinately unmindful of the will or wishes of others; obstinate: as, self-willed man; self-willed rulers.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Governed by one's own will; not yielding to the wishes of others; obstinate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Obstinate; strong-minded
  • adjective Possessing self-will.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition

Etymologies

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Examples

  • More pertinently, the gap between Figgis's vision of the historical Lucrezia as inherently victimised and Donizetti's view of her as a self-willed monster redeemed by maternal love is too great.

    Lucrezia Borgia - review 2011

  • Despite the improbability of the union, they stayed together – after a long period of tantrums, trial separations and retaliatory sexual bouts with third parties, all part of a power struggle between two very self-willed men – until Isherwood's death in 1986.

    Christopher Isherwood remembered: 'Chris always loved young men, and I was certainly young' Peter Conrad 2010

  • A future collective mind cannot arise without including, and enhancing, the uniqueness of self-willed humans.

    World Wide Mind Michael chorost 2011

  • O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast!

    Hayley Adamson is dead but Northumbria wins Gold! « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • Kushner makes a convincing case “not only for the idea of early loss precipitating self-destructive conduct, but also, auspiciously, for that same behavior becoming a strategy through which the person involved comes to grips with his guilt and rage, and triumphs over self-willed death.”

    History of a Suicide Jill Bialosky 2011

  • The inclosed letter will show you what authority I had for being so self-willed and positive.

    Letter 336 2009

  • Her tale takes off like a cheetah, starting with the horrendous moment of simultaneously losing six of her Black Panther brothers, as in siblings, to her impregnating rape a day later, her brief career as a bordello girl, to her self-willed destiny as the ultimate queen of drug dealers in 1970s Chicago. â¨â¨

    Binky Philips: Nick Tosches Saves The Last Dance For Satan Binky Philips 2011

  • A future collective mind cannot arise without including, and enhancing, the uniqueness of self-willed humans.

    World Wide Mind Michael chorost 2011

  • Her tale takes off like a cheetah, starting with the horrendous moment of simultaneously losing six of her Black Panther brothers, as in siblings, to her impregnating rape a day later, her brief career as a bordello girl, to her self-willed destiny as the ultimate queen of drug dealers in 1970s Chicago.

    Binky Philips: Nick Tosches Saves The Last Dance For Satan Binky Philips 2011

  • O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast!

    The Volokh Conspiracy » A View from an Incoming Harvard 1L 2010

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