Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Weak desire or volition.
- noun A slight or weak wish or inclination.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Volition in the weakest form; an indolent or inactive wish or inclination toward a thing, which leads to no energetic effort to obtain it: chiefly a scholastic term.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The lowest degree of desire; imperfect or incomplete volition.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The lowest degree of
desire orvolition , with no effort to act. - noun A slight
wish not followed by any effort to obtain.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun volition in its weakest form
- noun a mere wish, unaccompanied by effort to obtain
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word velleity.
Examples
-
We may well say: I would desire to be young; but we do not say: I desire to be young; seeing that this is not possible; and this motion is called a wishing, or as the Scholastics term it a velleity, which is nothing else but a commencement of willing, not followed out, because the will, by reason of impossibility or extreme difficulty, stops her motion, and ends it in this simple affection of a wish.
Treatise on the Love of God 1567-1622 1884
-
Wherefore such a will should rather be called a "velleity" than an absolute will; because one would will (_vellet_) if there were no obstacle.
Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition Aquinas Thomas
-
Therese's "desire" to be a priest was in the field of devotional velleity - nothing approaching the field of voluntas.
-
But like the former, the latter preference is no mere velleity; it is a firm orientation of the will that requires, among other things, repentance.
Archive 2007-08-01 Mike L 2007
-
But like the former, the latter preference is no mere velleity; it is a firm orientation of the will that requires, among other things, repentance.
How much can one get away with disbelieving? Mike L 2007
-
However, I will permit myself -- and more importantly, will beg your indulgence for -- analepses and occasional analogies where my own admittedly subjective views and readings seem to demand them...or at least wish for them in a spirit of whimsical velleity.
-
Some people who are formally in the Church, the household of God, are not followers of Christ in their hearts, despite claiming to be and having a velleity, as distinct from a will, to do so.
The line between assurance and presumption Mike L 2007
-
Some people who are formally in the Church, the household of God, are not followers of Christ in their hearts, despite claiming to be and having a velleity, as distinct from a will, to do so.
Archive 2007-08-01 Mike L 2007
-
Who could have imagined then, in Crumpsall, that the ancient Jewish hope, “Next year in Jerusalem”—for so long more a velleity than a hope, the feeblest and most unanticipated of anticipations—would be realized in their lifetime and that they would be able to stand here, under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers, but otherwise unimpeded, together?
Kalooki Nights Howard Jacobson 2006
-
This connoisseuse of "splendid weaknesses," run not by any lust or even velleity but by vacuum: by the absence of human hope.
Gravity's Rainbow Pynchon, Thomas 1978
oroboros commented on the word velleity
Here's Kit Thompson's narrative comment on MyFavoriteWord.com:
"I found this word on a quiet day in November, in my parent's 1906 Webster's International Dictionary, an immense tome that enjoys its own stand underneath a creepy oil portrait of a somber, walrus-mustached man -- who may or may not be a relative -- in a rather dark corner of the living room of my parents' 200 year old Cape Cod in the woods of Spring Hill Farm in Edgecomb, Maine.
The word is said to mean: "The lowest degree of desire; imperfect or incomplete volition."
"It is with great velleity that I get up, put on my socks and shoes, and head to work."
"Honey, you know I love you but to be perfectly honest, I'm feeling velleitous* about having relations tonight."
* not in the dictionary, unfortunately.
September 30, 2007
seanahan commented on the word velleity
I would say velletious instead of velletous, but since neither of those links are going to take you anywhere, the point is moot.
September 30, 2007
oroboros commented on the word velleity
Seanahan: velleitous (per Kit Thompson) would become velleitious in your treatment. Still like it better?
October 1, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word velleity
"'They may have coveted your silver—I am sure they did—but that was a mere passing velleity compared with their yearning for Mr Hadley's double-handed saws, adzes, jack-screws and many other bright steel objects I cannot name.'"
--Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation, 34
March 6, 2008
katpaint commented on the word velleity
Zadie Smith in an essay on George Eliot in The Guardian:
"Eliot dissects degrees of human velleity, finding the conscious action hidden within the impulse hidden within the desire hidden within the will tucked away deep inside the decision that we have obfuscated even from ourselves".
May 27, 2008
bilby commented on the word velleity
Ewww, Zadie, that was awful.
May 28, 2008
textually_explicit commented on the word velleity
This is another one of those words that has such a fragrance of emotion around it; to say it is to feel it.
April 2, 2009