Will

How to spell will

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce will

What does will mean?

1. verbAn auxiliary verb used to express the future tense or a firm intention.
2. nounA legal document setting out how a person's property is to be distributed after their death.
3. nounThe faculty of deliberate choice, or the determination to do something.

Will in a sentence

• verb

  The delivery will arrive before noon tomorrow.

• noun

  She updated her will after buying the new house.

• noun

  Finishing the marathon took enormous will and training.

• verb

  The accountant said the figures will balance once the refund clears.

• noun

  The solicitor read the will aloud to the family.

• noun

  She returned to work against her doctor's advice through sheer will.

Where does will come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English willan, a verb meaning 'to want, to wish, or to desire', and from the related noun willa, meaning 'desire, intention, or determination'. It belongs to a large family of Germanic words, with close cousins in German (wollen and Wille) and Dutch (willen), all tracing back to a Proto-Germanic root that meant 'to choose or want'. The same ancient root sits behind the Latin velle, 'to wish', which is why distant relatives turn up in English borrowings like 'voluntary' and 'volition'. Over time the verb 'to want' weakened into the everyday auxiliary that simply marks the future tense, while the noun branch kept the stronger flavour of personal resolve and, by extension, the legal document that records a person's final wishes. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable and the doubled l has been there since early Middle English, so the trap is purely homophonic confusion rather than anything irregular in the letters themselves.

How the word is built

• will (from Old English willan, to want or wish); a single native root with no added prefix or suffix