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.

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 Dillon, Emile Joseph

This is so true that one may safely affirm that if Russian patriotism has been sustained by our velleities of action, Russian destructiveness has been encouraged by our velleities of desertion.

From The Inside Story of the Peace Conference by Dillon, Emile Joseph

She is not a bookmaker of the worst kind; she evidently had wits and literary velleities; and she does illustrate the blind nisus of the time as already indicated.

From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by Saintsbury, George

And our being results not from velleities but from the real will.

From The Reform of Education by Gentile, Giovanni