Word.ws English Dictionary

william-nilliam

william-nilliam is the alternative form of willy-nilly.

Meaning of willy-nilly

Adverb

willy-nilly (comparative more willy-nilly, superlative most willy-nilly)

  1. Whether desired or not; without regard for consequences or wishes of those affected; whether willingly or unwillingly.
    • Whenever I see a long handsome neck, willy nilly, the thought will come uppermost—What a capital neck for carving! Those cursed executions! One can't rid one's mind of them.1868, [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe, translated by Arthur Duke Coleridge, Egmont. A Tragedy. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, act II, page 40
  2. (idiomatic) Seemingly at random; haphazardly.
    • The novel Alice in Wonderland describes a place where things happen willy-nilly.

See all 4 meanings of willy-nilly

Forms of william-nilliam

comparativemore william-nilliam
superlativemost william-nilliam

Questions about william-nilliam

What is william-nilliam the alternative form of?
William-nilliam is the alternative form of willy-nilly.

Words near william-nilliam in the dictionary

  1. William and Mary
  2. William McKinley
  3. William McKinleys
  4. William Tell
  5. William's Harbour
  6. william-nilliam
  7. Williamina
  8. Williamite
  9. Williamites
  10. Williams
  11. Williams County

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: william-nilliam (page history and authors); willy-nilly (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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Cite this entry: “william-nilliam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/william-nilliam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.