Word.ws English Dictionary

willy nilly

willy nilly 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 willy nilly

comparativemore willy nilly
superlativemost willy nilly

Questions about willy nilly

What is willy nilly the alternative form of?
Willy nilly is the alternative form of willy-nilly.

Words near willy nilly in the dictionary

  1. willusionist
  2. willusionists
  3. Willwerth
  4. Willwerths
  5. willy
  6. willy nilly
  7. Willy Pete
  8. Willy Wag Tail
  9. Willy Wag Tails
  10. Willy Wag-tail
  11. Willy Wag-tails

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: willy nilly (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: “willy nilly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/willy_nilly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.