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اولين خدمات ترجمه از طريق نمابر و پست الكترونيك در ايران

گوش كنيد، بخوانيد، لذت ببريد، ياد بگيريد

بر روی آیکون قرمز کلیک کنید تا گوینده متن را برایتان بخواند. سعی کنید لغات دشوار را نیز یاد بگیرید.
نکته! کلیه کلمات به فرهنگ لغت نیز متصل هستند و چنانچه بر روی هر لغت دوبار کلیک کنید معنای آن را خواهید دید.

Willy-nilly

Much to our amusement and thanks to our spam filter, an electronic query about the origin of the word willy-nilly went astray. Once we got things back in the proper order, we started looking through the various meanings and history of willy-nilly.

The most modern sense of the adjective willy-nilly describes something "in a haphazard or spontaneous manner," but when willy-nilly first appeared in English around the turn of the 17th century, it meant "by compulsion; without choice." That sense still survives, although it is far less common than it once was.

So where does willy-nilly originate? As alterations of the still older phrasings will I, nill I; will he, nill he; and will ye, nill ye. Those pairings meant roughly "whether I, he, or you will it or not." The will in this sense means "choose; desire;" the nill—now archaic—meant the opposite: "not to will; to be unwilling." Shakespeare used the phrase in just that way in The Taming of the Shrew when Petruccio tells Kate will you, nill you, I will marry you.

So something willy-nilly was "without regard to individual inclination; helplessly;" or "by compulsion." Not surprisingly, those senses went on to develop the additional meanings "inevitably; in a haphazard or spontaneous manner."

Provided by Tarjomeh.com from Merriam-Webster.

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