What is "willful"

Usage examples of "willful".

I could actually have managed it, as he was as strong as he was willful, his diagonal crossing of the flight of hurdles harvested a barrage of curses from the other jockeys.

Later in the day the sun might manage to burn off the haze, but right now Elizabeth stood on the lakefront and felt as if she had stumbled on some fairyland: mists floated over the surface of the water so that the island disappeared and reappeared, in what seemed to be an almost willful manner.

It was as though this whole Meadows empire which he had so carefully rebuilt out of the chaos was a castle of playing cards on a living-room rug, and John Tinker was a two-year-old playing in the same room, willful, destructive and unpredictable.

CIRCLE the mothers, each has her own trademark sweet, hungry, wide-eyed, happy, cranky, willful, easy, sleepy, or hard to soothe.

That was the trouble with willful elder sisters who favored Yanqui officers as lovers, Charlie thought as the buggy pulled in front of dear Maison de Rose and Amaury clucked for the horses to stop.

I will not allow you to ruin yourself, or Olivia, simply because you are willful and stubborn.

It vibrated inside him and overwhelmed the air around himhorrible, of coursemuch more than meaningless noise, her madness in its waveforms and repetitions occupying his body, madness measured in cycles per second, her willful disintegration taking over his mind.

After nearly a week of solitude, Carline had emerged a changed person more subdued, less willful.

The Ninth Cause of Action contains the charges that the fraudulent conduct on the part of the defendants as herein alleged was willful, wanton, malicious and in utter disregard of the rights of the plaintiff causing him mental and professional distress and that as a result he is entitled to compensatory and treble or punitive damages, an accounting, a constructive trust for plaintiff's benefit on all profits and gross revenues from The Blood in the Red White and Blue, an injunction stopping its showing unless and until he is credited with his originative role in its creation, interest, costs and reasonable attorney's fees.

But as a group they scorn foresight and rely on a colorful, willful ignorance that brings them now and then to pick on a gas station whose owner works twelve hours a day on the premises, has his life savings tied up in the franchise, and whose body bloats with adrenaline at the prospect of being victimized by a gang of punks.

For more than ten years the present champion was clearly the greatest chess player in the world, but during that time he exhibited such willful and seemingly self-destructive behavior—refusing to enter crucial tournaments, quitting them for crankish reasons while holding a commanding lead, entertaining what many called a paranoid delusion that the whole world was plotting to keep him from reaching the top—that many informed experts wrote him off as a contender for the highest honors.

They viewed Vanessa'a intelligence as an act of willful disobedience against a school that wanted only for its students to have clear skin, pliant demeanors, and no overly inner-city desire for elaborately constructed sports sneakers.

Youthfulness--worse, willful youthfulness--was no slight social disability in a society where the average life span was measured in centuries and anyone much under fifty was regarded as a youngster.

Dressed in hunting gear (although Jamas was not certain that barguas made appropriate prey for women), the three girls were certainly attractive: two brunettes and one stunning redhead whom Jamas immediately took to be as strong-minded and willful as that flamboyant coloration.

Of course, teaching the willful Ruval such potency was a calculated risk.