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Crossword clues for willfulness

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Willfulness

Willful \Will"ful\, a. [Will + full.] [Written also wilful.]

  1. Of set purpose; self-determined; voluntary; as, willful murder.
    --Foxe.

    In willful poverty chose to lead his life.
    --Chaucer.

    Thou to me Art all things under heaven, all places thou, Who, for my willful crime, art banished hence.
    --Milton.

  2. Governed by the will without yielding to reason; obstinate; perverse; inflexible; stubborn; refractory; as, a willful man or horse. [1913 Webster] -- Will"ful*ly, adv. -- Will"ful*ness, n.

Wiktionary
willfulness

n. The quality of being willful; obstinacy

WordNet
willfulness

n. the trait of being prone to disobedience and lack of discipline [syn: unruliness, fractiousness, wilfulness]

Usage examples of "willfulness".

Emily wanted to stop for mussels and winkles at the shellfish stand, then for lemonade at a nearby cafe, claiming she was hungry and thirsty, and in a burst of willfulness she stamped her foot.

Some night when I am drunk on the blood of many victims, and more accustomed than I am now to confession, I will recount it, my crude and sinister operations, conducted with a sorcerer's willfulness and a boy's blundering, and describe in grim and grotesque detail the writhing jerking catastrophe that rose from beneath my scalpel and my surgical needle and thread.