Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Willing; ready; eager; keen.
- Due to one's own will; spontaneous; voluntary; deliberate; intentional: as, wilful murder; wilful waste.
- Obstinate and unreasonable; not to be moved from one's notions, inclinations, purposes, or the like, by counsel, advice, commands, or instructions; obstinate; stubborn; refractory; wayward; inflexible: as, a wilful man; a wilful horse.
- Synonyms Untoward, Contrary, etc. (see
wayward ), self-willed, mulish, intractable, headstrong, unruly, heady.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- See
willful ,willfully , andwillfulness .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
intentional ;deliberate
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective done by design
- adjective habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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In the select committee today, Adrian Sanders asked the Murdochs if they were familiar with the term 'wilful blindness'.
Margaret Heffernan: The Wilful Blindness of Rupert Murdoch Margaret Heffernan 2011
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In the select committee today, Adrian Sanders asked the Murdochs if they were familiar with the term 'wilful blindness'.
Margaret Heffernan: The Wilful Blindness of Rupert Murdoch Margaret Heffernan 2011
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15.41 James Murdoch is asked is he is aware of the term "wilful blindness" as used in the Enron scandal.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011
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15.41 James Murdoch is asked is he is aware of the term "wilful blindness" as used in the Enron scandal.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011
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'Now, Miss Holman, that's what I call wilful,' said Holdsworth, as she gave them to him.
Cousin Phillis Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837
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If Pryor actually believes what he seems to have said here, then I think he is engaged in wilful blindness about the nature of the criminal justice system in the United States.
Balkinization 2003
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If Pryor actually believes what he seems to have said here, then I think he is engaged in wilful blindness about the nature of the criminal justice system in the United States.
Balkinization 2003
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"If that cough-drop-devouring creature had openly instructed those fourteen people — and what unfinished-looking faces they have — so characteristic, I always think, of the lower middle-class, rather like sheep, or calves 'head (boiled, I mean), to bring in wilful murder against the poor little man, he couldn't have made himself plainer."
Whose Body? Dorothy Leigh 1923
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Here, the sentiment is, There are but two kingdoms, interests, parties -- with the proper workings of each: If I promote the one, I cannot belong to the other; but they that set themselves in wilful opposition to the kingdom of light openly proclaim to what other kingdom they belong.
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'Finally, she adjures you to consider, that if you still persevere to consume your time in wilful negligence, to bury all thought in idle gaiety, and to act without either reflection or principle, the career of faults which begins but in unthinking folly, will terminate in shame, in guilt, and in ruin!
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