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Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Not to will; not to wish.
- v. To be unwilling; will not.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Will not; wish not; refuse; reject.
- Will not; be unwilling.
- n. Negative volition; a “will not.”
- n. A dialectal form of needle.
- n. A dialectal form of nail.
- n. The shining sparks of brass given off in trying and melting the ore.
- n. Scales of hot iron from the forge.
Wiktionary
- n. Shining sparks thrown off from melted brass.
- n. Scales of hot iron from the forge.
- v. modal auxiliary, obsolete To be unwilling; will not (+ infinitive).
- v. intransitive, archaic To be unwilling.
- v. transitive, archaic To reject, refuse, negate.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete Not to will; to refuse; to reject.
- v. To be unwilling; to refuse to act.
- n. Shining sparks thrown off from melted brass.
- n. Scales of hot iron from the forge.
Etymologies
- From Middle English nillen, from Old English nillan, nellan, nyllan ("to be unwilling, refuse, prevent; not want to"), corresponding to ne + will. Cognate with Old Frisian nelle. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English nilen, from Old English nyllan : ne, not; see ne in Indo-European roots + willan, to desire; see wel-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Unsurprisingly, there were some pretty inventive ways of saying it, such as nill — from which the term willy-nilly (literally meaning “will he, won’t he” in Middle English) is derived.”
Preposterous Apostrophes VII: Why Won’t Willn’t Work? « Motivated Grammar
“With the overwhelming majority of swing voters believing she is unqualified to hold national office her chances of carrying a national election are next to nill.”
“With 20% unemployment (real numbers) the economy in the tank, wages cut, businesses lost, foreclosures at record numbers, and personal income almost nill, the working class is not making enough money to be taxed.”
“That is the likelihood of default on T-Bills traded, which has gone from practically nill to 6% on a 10 year note.”
“NBC has already made the decision to banish it to Saturday nights starting April 18th, so its chances of renewal are almost nill.”
“We don't have good data, we don't have probabilities, and we don't have the slightest idea of the costs and the effectiveness is near nill and greatly overestimated (economics suggest that unintended consequences will result in only the slightest effect from policy change).”
Freeman Dyson on Global Warming, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“As I remember your evidence for god was Fjords .. 1 - nill to the atheists.”
“*I don't know that he ever owned slaves personally, in fact I'd be surprised if he did; but in a society with slavery all non-enslaved people reap the benefits of that institution, whether they will or nill.”
“I've never really had a lot of hope for this project and now .... well, my interest is nill.”
Smallville Scribes Hired to Ruin Live-Action Robotech Movie | /Film
“That means, in simple terms, Obama beat you two nill.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nill’.
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phrontistery - n
from phrontistery.info
nacarat, nacelle, nacket, nacre, nacreous, naevus, naiant, nail, nainsook, naissant, nanism, nanization and 340 more...
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Underwordied
Words that, despite being rare, are hardly wordied.
lych gate, lych, rynt, vicinal, vicine, entheal, enthean, demoded, coextensive, miche, prosiliency, agalmatophilia and 119 more...
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boychoir's Words
tantamount, nom de guerre, absurd, dolt, transmute, dichotomy, dandy, schadenfreude, ennui, binary, analog, obfuscate and 93 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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List
Witty, Murmur, Schism, Smolder, ingle nook, revenant, sea-gate, swell, knot, gunwale, oarlock, poppet and 65 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nill.
Comments
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