willing - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

By surface analysis, will +‎ -ing.

willing (comparative more willing, superlative most willing)

  1. Ready to do something, particularly something that requires change or effort; not objecting.
    If my boyfriend isn't willing to change his drinking habits, I will split up with him.
    • 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎[1]:
      "Of course, the ventilation is awful. We pump the air down, but two-hour shifts are the most the men can do - and they are willing lads too."
    • 1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, pages 3, 5:
      Coal-eaters they may have been, but a more willing or harder working Atlantic engine was never designed.
    • 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:
      Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.
    • 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43:
      Typically for the 'get-on-with-it' era, the railway and military worked like demons to restore the vital rail link. The crater was rapidly filled in and the earth tamped solid, the wreckage was removed by breakdown trains, new rails and sleepers were rushed forward by willing hands, and US Army bulldozers piled in. By 2020 on the same day, both tracks were open for traffic again where there had been a gaping pit just hours before.

willing (plural willings)

  1. (rare or obsolete) The execution of a will.

willing

  1. present participle and gerund of will