willful

English

Adjective

willful (comparative more willful or willfuler or willfuller, superlative most willful or willfulest or willfullest)

1. US standard spelling of wilful.
   • 1854, Agnes Strickland, chapter XIX, in Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses Connected with the Regal Succession of Great Britain, volume IV (Mary Stuart), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 197:

     I may well say that a willfuler woman, and one more wedded unto her own opinion, without order, reason, and discretion, I never did know or heard of.

   • 1869 April 3, [Frances Eleanor Trollope], “The Sacristan’s Household. A Story. […] Chapter XXVII. The Justizrath Is ‘Straightforward.’”, in Harper’s Bazar. A Repository of Fashion, Pleasure, and Instruction., volume II, number 14, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, page 218, column 3:

     I hope you’ll excuse the liberty, but I’ve come to Detmold along with Herr Peters, the apothecary, in his pony chaise; and a willfuler-minded beast I never sat behind. A taste of the whip would do him good, and if he was mine he should have it.

   • 1918 April 27, “[The Essence of Current Affairs: A Summary for Busy Readers, of the Significant Doings and Discussions of the Day] Must Elect Loyal Senators”, in The Pathfinder, twenty-fifth year, number 1269, Washington, D.C., page 4 (100), column 3:

     Norris was one of the willfullest of the notorious 12, and he opposed the arming of our ships, the declaration of war, the draft, the war revenue bill, etc.

   • 1920, Waldo Frank, chapter III, in The Dark Mother: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright, page 43:

     Sudden she came of her own broken and sick will. Their wills were healing each other. She was willfuller now than he. She held his head in her arms, her flesh was all about him.

   • 1963 April [1951 February 5], Robert P[eter] Tristram Coffin, “Wild Briar-Roses”, in Frances Parkinson Keyes, compiler, A Treasury of Favorite Poems: From the Scrapbooks of Frances Parkinson Keyes, New York, N.Y.: Hawthorn Books, Inc., →LCCN, section 20 (Seasons and Flowers), page 441:

     Sweet from the rock, honey from hateful places, / Tenderness opening among the thorns, / Wild briar-roses scent the heedless ocean, / Willfuler, wilder than unicorns.

   • 1967, Parker Tyler, “Is Film Criticism Only Propaganda?”, in Gregory Battcock, editor, The New American Cinema: A Critical Anthology, New York, N.Y.: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., part II (Theory and Criticism), page 68:

     Why is the wildest, willfullest daydream (which may be quite banal) no less than the most naive and flabby documentary welcomed, sometimes, with equal fervor?

   • 1978, Ned Rorem, “A Cultured Winter”, in An Absolute Gift: A New Diary, New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, part two, page 142:

     By the reverse token, in opera, where music is primary, the composer’s intent is hard to sabotage by even the willfullest mind.