Word.ws English Dictionary

volitional

/vəˈlɪʃənəl/

volitional adjective: of or relating to the volition or will.

Adjective

volitional (comparative more volitional, superlative most volitional)

  1. (formal, not comparable) Of or relating to the volition or will.
    • Little by little the whole subject population of the world was fitted with the instruments of volitional control. The government was now practically omnipotent.1942, Olaf Stapledon, Darkness and the Light, chapter 5, iii
    • Stern and Karl Bühler noticed independently that a child’s first “No” has a volitional meaning and that the significance as a simple denial of fact appears several months afterwards.1957, Leo Kanner, Child Psychology, 3rd edition, Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, Part Two, Chapter 4, p. 42
  2. (comparable) Done by conscious, personal choice; not based on external principles; not accidental.
    • A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals to discovery.1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
    • “Loving on” someone—whether he likes it or not—posits love as a volitional activity, an act not of passion but of will.2016 July 28, Rebecca Mead, “The Power of ‘Love’ in Politics”, in The New Yorker
    Synonyms:
    deliberate
  3. (not comparable) Expressing intention, hortation, supposition, or inclusive invitation.

Noun

volitional (plural volitionals)

  1. The volitional grammatical mood.
  2. A form of a word inflected for the volitional mood; a volitional form.

Synonyms of volitional

Forms of volitional

Adjective
comparativemore volitional
superlativemost volitional
Noun
pluralvolitionals

Origin of volitional

From volition + -al.

Words formed from volitional

Questions about volitional

What does volitional mean?
Volitional means of or relating to the volition or will.
What part of speech is volitional?
Volitional can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce volitional?
Volitional is pronounced /vəˈlɪʃənəl/.

Words near volitional in the dictionary

  1. volitations
  2. volitiency
  3. volitient
  4. volitile
  5. volition
  6. volitional
  7. volitionalism
  8. volitionalist
  9. volitionalists
  10. volitionality
  11. volitionally

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: volitional (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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