English Dictionary |
AT WILL
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Dictionary entry overview: What does at will mean?
• AT WILL (adverb)
The adverb AT WILL has 1 sense:
Familiarity information: AT WILL used as an adverb is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
As one chooses or pleases
Context example:
he can roam the neighborhood at will
Context examples
In fact, you don’t like to have any constraints on your spending, for your ruler Jupiter teaches you to expand outward at will and to enjoy life.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Freedom to roam and run and lie down at will, had been his heritage; and here it was being infringed upon.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Then they fitted the mice with intracranial optical fibers so they could expose their brains to blue light at will.
(Geneticists produce laser-activated killer mice, Wikinews)
Thus, by carrying this tackle to the windlass, I could raise and lower the end of the boom at will, the butt always remaining stationary, and, by means of guys, I could swing the boom from side to side.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat—the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Her 'scribbling suit' consisted of a black woolen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, the happiest power of jumping and guessing, he could always alight at will on the best scene, or the best speeches of each; and whether it were dignity, or pride, or tenderness, or remorse, or whatever were to be expressed, he could do it with equal beauty.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
On the screen of his imagination he saw himself and this sweet and beautiful girl, facing each other and conversing in good English, in a room of books and paintings and tone and culture, and all illuminated by a bright light of steadfast brilliance; while ranged about and fading away to the remote edges of the screen were antithetical scenes, each scene a picture, and he the onlooker, free to look at will upon what he wished.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
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