Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Deprived of the faculty of will; bereft of the power of volition.
  • Not willed; not purposed; involuntary; unintentional; spontaneous.

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

  • adjective Deprived of the faculty of will or volition.

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

  • adjective Not disposed of in a legal will.
  • adjective Not willed or wished for.

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

  • adjective without deliberate volition
  • adjective without deliberate intent

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

un- +‎ willed

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Examples

  • John Bargh, in this chapter - Bypassing the Will: Towards Demystifying the Nonconscious Control of Social Behavior 1 - takes evidence from several different subdisciplines and argues that consciousness - that thing which gives us our experience of deliberate control - exists exactly to make automatic, 'unwilled', behaviours possible.

    Mind Hacks: Consciousness exists to make itself unnecessary 2006

  • John Bargh, in this chapter - Bypassing the Will: Towards Demystifying the Nonconscious Control of Social Behavior 1 - takes evidence from several different subdisciplines and argues that consciousness - that thing which gives us our experience of deliberate control - exists exactly to make automatic, 'unwilled', behaviours possible.

    Mind Hacks: March 2006 Archives 2006

  • My wife says the hand goes to notes unwilled by her, dark, minor chords.

    The Hand Gary Moshimer 2011

  • Since he was no longer the object of a search, that was easy to do; he simply merged with unwilled machines, intercepting their orders and performing their tasks himself.

    Here There Are Monsters 2010

  • I quivered and the breath went from me in an unwilled gasp.

    Sick Cycle Carousel 2010

  • It seemed to have something to do with wave dynamics, a sense of harnessing a blast of energy that would rise from one hip, course through the body to the opposite shoulder, flow downward into the fists, which would then surge in opposing directions, bringing the blade through with an amazement of unwilled speed and force, all without trying.

    A Bob Lee Swagger eBook Boxed Set Stephen Hunter 2009

  • Like Dreiser in Sister Carrie, Wright goes to great lengths to establish that the crime was involuntary, unwilled, accidental.

    Every protest’s novel 2009

  • It seemed to have something to do with wave dynamics, a sense of harnessing a blast of energy that would rise from one hip, course through the body to the opposite shoulder, flow downward into the fists, which would then surge in opposing directions, bringing the blade through with an amazement of unwilled speed and force, all without trying.

    A Bob Lee Swagger eBook Boxed Set Stephen Hunter 2009

  • Memories come flooding back, often unwilled, sometimes unwelcomed.

    Louis Bickford: Memory, War, and the Memory of War 2009

  • It seemed to have something to do with wave dynamics, a sense of harnessing a blast of energy that would rise from one hip, course through the body to the opposite shoulder, flow downward into the fists, which would then surge in opposing directions, bringing the blade through with an amazement of unwilled speed and force, all without trying.

    A Bob Lee Swagger eBook Boxed Set Stephen Hunter 2009

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