will

Used to express the future tense, sometimes with an implication of volition or determination when used in the first person. Compare shall.

Do not forget, will you?

Will you be doing the shopping this evening? If so, will you do mine too, please?

To be able to, to have the capacity to.

Unfortunately, only one of these gloves will actually fit over my hand.

Expressing a present tense or perfect tense with some conditional or subjective weakening: "will turn out to", "must by inference".

He will be home by now. He always gets home before 6 o'clock.

I can't find my umbrella. I will've left it at home this morning.

To habitually do (a given action).

Boys will be boys.

People will talk.

To choose or agree to (do something); used to express intention but without any temporal connotations, often in questions and negation.

Will you marry me?

What will you drink?

One's independent faculty of choice; the ability to be able to exercise one's choice or intention.

Of course, man's will is often regulated by his reason.

The act of choosing to do something; a person’s conscious intent or volition.

Most creatures have a will to live.

The father chose the name and could change it later at his will.

One's intention or decision; someone's orders or commands.

Eventually I submitted to my parents' will.

In the first place, although many people wanted nationalisation and it became the will of Parliament, there were many other people who did not want it, have never willingly accepted it, and never will.

Firmness of purpose, fixity of intent

Thus Mill’s case for the claim that happiness is the sole human end, put more carefully, is this: ‘Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself until has become so’ (1861a: 237). Nothing here assumed Hume’s view that every action must ultimately flow from an underived desire. That is a quite separate issue, and Mill’s view of it is closer to that of Kant or Reid than to that of Hume. He insists ‘positively and emphatically’ that the will is a different thing from desire; that a person of confirmed virtue, or any other person whose purposes are fixed, carries out his purposes without any thought of the pleasure he has in contemplating them, or expects to derive from their fulfilment. (1861a: 238) This distinction between purpose and desire is central to Mill’s conception of the will. When we develop purposes we can will against mere likings or aversions: ‘In the case of an habitual purpose, instead of willing the thing because we desire it, we often desire it only because we will it’ (1861a: 238). Every action is caused by a motive, but not every motive is a liking or aversion: When the will is said to be determined by motives, a motive does not mean always, or solely, the anticipation of a pleasure or of a pain…. A habit of willing is commonly called a purpose; and among the causes of our volitions, and of the actions which flow from them, must be reckoned not only likings and aversions, but also purposes. (1843: 842) The formation of purposes from desires is the evolution of will; it is also the development of character. Mill quotes Novalis: ‘a character is a completely fashioned will’ (1843: 843).

...surely the link could not have been with Churchill the brilliant, gallant and steadfast wartime leader who, by dint of character, will and language, turned near defeat into victory.

A formal declaration of one's intent concerning the disposal of one's property and holdings after death; the legal document stating such wishes.

“Uncle Barnaby was always father and mother to me,” Benson broke in; then after a pause his mind flew off at a tangent. “Is old Hannah all right—in the will, I mean?”

To instruct (that something be done) in one's will.

To bequeath (something) to someone in one's will (legal document).

He willed his stamp collection to the local museum.

To exert one's force of will (intention) in order to compel, or attempt to compel, something to happen or someone to do something.

All the fans were willing their team to win the game.

They willed me say so, madam.