velleity
Americannoun
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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:
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 Gentile, Giovanni
Will is devoid of intellect, as intellect is deprived of velleity.
From The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur by Dillon, Emile Joseph
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 Burton, Isabel, Lady
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 Hall, G. Stanley
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 Croce, Benedetto
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
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
It is a world of rejections and velleities; in spite of outward similarities, a strangely different world from that of half a dozen years ago.
From Aspects of Literature by Murry, J. Middleton
As regards velleities, they are only a very imperfect kind of conditional will.
From Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil by Huggard, E.M.
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.
