vbl. sb. [f. VOLUNTEER sb. and v.] The action of serving, or offering one’s services, as a volunteer.
1691. Dryden, K. Arthur, Prol. 47. If you Gallants lose, to all appearing You’ll want an Equipage for Volunteering.
1706–7. Farquhar, Beaux’ Strat., I. i. I warrant you, our Friends imagine that we are gone a volunteering.
1758. H. Walpole, Corr. (1837), I. 381. Has he stolen to Southampton and slipped away a-volunteering … to conquer France in a dirty shirt and a frock?
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 199. Numbers of young nobility were willing to run a-volunteering in her defence.
1805. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., III. 316. We encourage volunteering to prevent enlisting.
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, xli. How strange it is of you to run down volunteering, when it’s done to defend you … in case of need.
1858. Merc. Marine Mag., V. 112. The law permitting the volunteering from the merchant ship to a ship of war should be altered.
