velleity
Americannoun
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velleities
plural
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volition in its weakest form.
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a mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it.
noun
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the weakest level of desire or volition
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a mere wish
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of velleity
First recorded in 1630–40; from Medieval Latin velleitās, equivalent to Latin velle “to be willing, want” + -itās -ity
Explanation
A velleity is a wish you have — a wish that you aren't working to make come true. If you have a velleity to run a marathon, the marathon sounds like a good idea — but you probably aren't going to start training. The word velleity comes from the Latin word velle, "to wish or to will." A mild impulse to do something, unaccompanied by any real motivation to follow through, can be called a velleity. If you dream of going on safari in Africa, but you never even look into how much it costs, that dream was just a velleity. Your dream of speaking fluent Spanish is a velleity if you never get around to opening your textbook.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Skill, endurance, and perseverance may almost be called muscular virtues; and fatigue, velleity, caprice, ennui, restlessness, lack of control and poise, muscular faults.
From Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene by G. Stanley Hall
I would, if I could: liberet si liceret; and in the case of a velleity, we do not will, properly speaking, to will, but to be able.
From Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil by E.M. Huggard
This theory and the subtleties derived from it, far from characterizing art, represent its contrary: the impotent velleity for art, which cannot slay abstractions and come in contact with life.
From Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic by Benedetto Croce
A velleity we might say is the will directed to an end which is either relatively or absolutely impossible; will is that which becomes effective.
From The Reform of Education by Giovanni Gentile
And the warrior king, who, like single-minded fathers in general, was ever in the idea that his son had a velleity for deriding and otherwise vexing him, began a severe course of reproof.
From Vikram and the Vampire; Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance by Lady Isabel Burton
Educators who opposed the velleities of the President's report were slow to speak up; they were afraid they might be misunderstood.
From Time Magazine Archive
In order to stifle any velleities of resistance on the part of their governments, they were notified that America's economic aid, of which they were in sore need, would depend on their docility.
From The Inside Story of the Peace Conference by Emile Joseph Dillon
But acting thus, I would be indulging in what I have called velleities.
From The Reform of Education by Giovanni Gentile
His being in the Palmerston cabinet which had been proposed, was, he said, out of the question; but his velleities seemed to lean rather to our joining, which surprised me.
From The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859 by John Morley
It started up in corrupt or sordid hearts, and swept all their blind velleities into its purifying flame of passion— "Love is incompatible With falsehood,—purifies, assimilates All other passions to itself."
From Robert Browning by C. H. (Charles Harold) Herford
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
