Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act of making a conscious choice or decision.
  • noun The power or faculty of choosing; the will.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of willing; the exercise of the will.
  • noun The power of willing; will.

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

  • noun The act of willing or choosing; the act of forming a purpose; the exercise of the will.
  • noun The result of an act or exercise of choosing or willing; a state of choice.
  • noun The power of willing or determining; will.

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

  • noun A conscious choice or decision.
  • noun The mental power or ability of choosing; the will.

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

  • noun the act of making a choice
  • noun the capability of conscious choice and decision and intention

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Medieval Latin volitiō, volitiōn-, from Latin velle, vol-, to wish; see wel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French volition, from Medieval Latin volitiō ("will, volition"), from Latin volō ("wish, will").

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Examples

  • The basic action in this case is often called a volition, which is said to be the agent's willing, trying, or endeavoring to move a certain part of her body in a certain way.

    Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will Clarke, Randolph 2008

  • The actual exercise of that power, by directing any particular action, or its forbearance, is that which we call volition or willing.

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • It is true, there is a thing which we call volition, or an act of the mind; but this does not produce the external change by which it is followed.

    A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory Albert Taylor Bledsoe 1843

  • Libet didn't consider backwards referral in volition because antedating in his sensory experiments was pinned to the primary sensory EP, and no such marker existed in the spontaneous finger movement experiments.

    A Third Choice (ID Hypothesis) 2007

  • If we call a volition in which consciousness of the self has played its part "volition proper," it still remains to inquire how volitions on a lower plane are to be distinguished from mere desires.

    A Handbook of Ethical Theory George Stuart Fullerton

  • But as for my sweet Babbie, her volition is not yet adequate to breaking the pack-threads of the Lilliputians, never to speak of cords of the Philistines.

    Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle 1883

  • The difficulty is to use it, to make the effort which the word volition implies.

    Memories and Studies William James 1876

  • But if we once clearly perceive that what in a relative sense we know as volition is, in a similar sense, the cause of bodily movement, we terminate the question touching the freedom of the will.

    Mind and Motion and Monism George John Romanes 1871

  • But if we once clearly perceive that what in a relative sense we know as volition is, in a similar sense, the cause of bodily movement, we terminate the question touching the freedom of the will.

    Mind and Motion and Monism George John Romanes 1871

  • The Duke of Argyll may not be aware of the fact, but it is nevertheless true, that when a man's arm is raised, in sequence to that state of consciousness we call a volition, the volition is not the immediate cause of the elevation of the arm.

    Collected Essays, Volume V Science and Christian Tradition: Essays Thomas Henry Huxley 1860

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