Voluntary

How to spell voluntary

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce voluntary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does voluntary mean?

1. adjectiveDone, given, or undertaken by free choice rather than because it is required.

Voluntary in a sentence

• The charity relies on voluntary donations from local businesses.

• Attendance at the evening workshop is voluntary rather than compulsory.

Where does voluntary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin voluntarius, meaning 'of one's free will', which was built on voluntas, 'will' or 'choice', and ultimately on the verb velle, 'to wish' or 'to be willing'. The notion at the heart of it is desire freely exercised, not action under compulsion. English took it up in the late 1300s by way of Old French, first in the sense of something done by deliberate choice, and the legal and charitable senses grew out of that same idea. The musical sense, an organ piece played at a church service, emerged later and reflects the original spontaneity of the form, since such pieces were once improvised at the player's pleasure. The same volunt- root survives in 'volunteer' and in 'volition', and the spelling trap is the quiet, unstressed middle: writers must remember the 'un' and the '-ary' ending rather than slip into '-ery'.

How the word is built

• volunt- (from Latin velle/volo: to wish, to will)
• -ary (adjective/noun suffix)