willy-nilly

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They never used the real system stars until season 4, which seemed like a signal, but they've used them willy-nilly.

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. adverb Whether desired or not: After her boss fell sick, she willy-nilly found herself directing the project.
  2. adverb Without order or plan; haphazardly.
  3. adjective Being or occurring whether desired or not: willy-nilly cooperation.

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Examples (23)

  • He and other Republicans say the spending is itself a form of art -- the Democratic art of throwing money at problems willy-nilly. —  The Swamp
  • However, while CPython does use operating system threads (in theory allowing multiple threads to execute within the interpreter simultaneously), the interpreter also forces the GIL to be acquired by a thread before it can access the interpreter and stack and can modify Python objects in memory all willy-nilly. —  Planet Python
  • It seems to me, since this is such a new project, that a lot of things got categorized willy-nilly style (which is understandable), and anything we can do to set things straight, I think it is better sooner than later. —  Conservapedia - Recent changes [en]
  • How is it possible that ballots found willy-nilly (in a trunk, behind a voting booth) would be considered legit? —  Ace of Spades HQ
  • To which statments I would answer ... no doubt the majority of people in this immigration office building never dreamed some guy would come in with a hunting rifle and start shooting people willy-nilly.
 

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Alteration of will ye (or he), nill ye (or he), be you (or he) willing, be you (or he) unwilling.
 

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/ˈwɪlɪˈnɪli/
by American Heritage

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