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Willy-nilly   /wˈɪli-nˈɪli/   Listen
Willy-nilly

adverb
1.
In a random manner.  Synonyms: arbitrarily, at random, every which way, haphazardly, indiscriminately, randomly.  "Bullets were fired into the crowd at random"
2.
Without having a choice.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Willy-nilly" Quotes from Famous Books



... gyrations. Cherokee identified himself with his instinct. He knew that he was doing the right thing by holding on, and there came to him certain blissful thrills of satisfaction. At such moments he even closed his eyes and allowed his body to be hurled hither and thither, willy-nilly, careless of any hurt that might thereby come to it. That did not count. The grip was the thing, and ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... branches sagged near to the ground. Dick was going along very decorously and sedately, as if he were studying the golden text or something equally absorbing, when, all at once, some spirit of mischief seemed to possess him and away he bolted, willy-nilly, right under the low-hanging branches of one of those trees. Of course, I was raked fore and aft, and, while I did not imitate the example of Absalom, I afforded a fairly good imitation, with the difference that, through many trials and tribulations, I finally reached the ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... "Willy-nilly, you must take part in a terrible battle; book against book, man against man, party against party; make war you must, and that systematically, or you will be abandoned by your own party. And they are mean contests; ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... practices. He had dragged her home, and when Ralph Hart had come after her, had threatened him with a quarter-staff, called out a mob of fishermen, and finally had brought him to Sir Lucas, who married them willy-nilly. He was the runaway son of a currier in York, and had taken her en croupe, and ridden off to his parents at the sign of the ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... glance into the chart-room gave me the cue to the Samurai's blunder—if blunder it can be called, for no one will ever know. He lay on the floor in a loose heap, rolling willy-nilly with ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London


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