| Wilful, | } |
| Wilfully. |
‘Wilful’ and ‘willing,’ ‘wilfully’ and ‘willingly,’ have been conveniently desynonymized by later usage in our language; so that in ‘wilful’ and ‘wilfully’ there now lies ever the sense of will capriciously exerted, deriving its motives merely from itself; while the examples which follow show there was once no such implication of self-will in the words.
Alle the sones of Israel halewiden wilful thingis to the Lord.—Exod. xxxv. 29. Wiclif.
A proud priest may be known when he denieth to follow Christ and his apostles in wilful poverty and other virtues.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.
Fede ye the flok of God, that is among you, and purvey ye, not as constreyned, but wilfulli.—1 Pet. v. 2. Wiclif.
And so, through his pitiful nailing, Christ shed out wilfully for man’s life the blood that was in his veins.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.
Wince. Now to shrink or start away as in pain from a stroke or touch; but, as far as I know, used always by our earlier authors in the sense of to kick.
Poul, whom the Lord hadde chosun, long tyme wynside agen the pricke.—Wiclif, Prolog on the Dedis of Apostlis.
For this flower of age, having no forecast of thrift, but set altogether upon spending, and given to delights and pleasures, winseth and flingeth out like a skittish and frampold horse in such sort that it had need of a sharp bit and short curb.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 14.
| Wit, | } |
| Witty. |