VOLUNTARY • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Voluntary

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/vˈɑləntɛri/ Listen

Voluntary

adjective

1.

Of your own free will or design; done by choice; not forced or compelled. "Participation was voluntary" , "Voluntary manslaughter" , "Voluntary generosity in times of disaster" , "Voluntary social workers" , "A voluntary confession"

2.

Controlled by individual volition. "Voluntary muscles"

noun

(pl. voluntaries)

1.

(military) a person who freely enlists for service. Synonyms: military volunteer, volunteer.

2.

Composition (often improvised) for a solo instrument (especially solo organ) and not a regular part of a religious service or musical performance.

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Voluntary" Quotes from Famous Books

... fled immediatly, leauing as much as the fire had spared to be the reward of our mens paines. Here was taken among others one Vincent Fonseca a Portugall, Purser of the carak, with two others, one an Almaine and the second a Low-dutchman, canoniers: who refusing to make any voluntary report of those things, which were demanded of them, had the torture threatened, the feare whereof at the last wrested from them this intelligence, that within fifteene dayes three other greater caraks ...

— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... under the windows of neighbors in whose rooms string-music was heard of hot summer evenings. On every occasion his nature testified to its lively abhorrence of tone, and once he was violently thrust forth from a church by an excited sexton. Racah had whistled derisively at the feebly executed voluntary of the organist. An old friend of the family declared that the boy should be trained as a music critic—he hated music so intensely. Racah's father would arch his meagre eyebrows and crisply say, "My son shall become a priest." "But ...

— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... it, however, is a different thing. It is based, primarily, on freedom. It is a natural and voluntary grouping of energies to secure results beneficial ...

— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... complete and well-bred self-possession, and the manner of her quietly assured self-introduction. She had her card all ready that should explain for her; and to the servant's reply that Madam Mucklegrand was in, she responded by moving forward with only enough of voluntary hesitation to allow him to indicate to her the reception room, at the door of which she gave him the ...

— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... he made first awkwardly and shyly certain twists and turns, finding no terms in which to unfold his case. And the lady was also perfectly silent, since she was outrageously struck with the blindness, deafness and voluntary paralysis of the lord of Braguelongne; and said to herself, walking by the side of this delicate morsel, a young innocent of whom she did not think, little imagining that this cat so well provided with young bacon could ...

— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

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