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View synonyms for willfully

willfully

or wil·ful·ly

[ wil-fuh-lee ]

adverb

  1. deliberately or intentionally; on purpose:

    Any seller who knowingly or willfully certifies false statements is subject to fine and imprisonment.

  2. in an unreasonably stubborn or headstrong way:

    The student disrupted school activities and willfully defied the authority of teachers, administrators, and other school employees.



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Other Words From

  • half-will·ful·ly half-wil·ful·ly adverb
  • un·will·ful·ly un·wil·ful·ly adverb

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Word History and Origins

Origin of willfully1

First recorded before 1000; equivalent to willful ( def ) + -ly ( def )

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Example Sentences

It’s easy to unwittingly punish characters for their queerness or promiscuity, rather than dramatize the horrible randomness of an epidemic compounded by the bigotry and willful ignorance of straight society.

From Time

It’s hard not to feel like the forgetting is willful, and willful forgetting only creates more distrust.

From Vox

Where one moment symbolized hunger for the right to a full and free vote—the other was a willful denial of a fair election won in part thanks to grassroots efforts at expanding voter rights.

From Quartz

Hunt said he didn’t think TOSHA could have proven that the 2016 and 2019 incidents were similar enough to sustain a willful violation with the information the agency had available.

Even now, his shockingly soulless and willful spreading of misinformation continues as the death toll mounts.

To do so is to deify a celebrity for being what we need them to be, while willfully ignoring who they really are.

Last week, just before willfully separating themselves from each other, they told each other, “I love you.”

At best, his administration appeared exceptionally lax, and at worst, it willfully obstructed justice.

When she tried to explain to him that he himself could be a carrier, he “willfully ignored what [she] said.”

But anyone who really sees “racism” in the matter is being almost willfully blind to perfectly rational human nature.

But the being who willfully creates pain and evil cannot be benevolent.

Thus the law holds him guilty who willfully breaks a contract entered into in good faith by all the parties to it.

No taint of false sentiment, of sorrow willfully indulged, marred these memories.

She looked down into the black abyss from which she had willfully turned away her eyes, and saw that it was fathomless.

Both the lessons of history and the tendency of the times are willfully and incessantly ignored.

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willfulWilliam