a. Also 8 wil-less, 9 willess. [f. WILL sb.1 + -LESS.]
1. Not having ‘a will of one’s own’; not exercising, or not involving exercise of, the will.
1747. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), I. xv. 99. Your blind duty and wil-less resignation.
1823. Galt, R. Gilhaize, II. 283. I walked in a willess manner.
1892. Mrs. H. Ward, David Grieve, III. x. He was like one of the last year’s leaves before him, whirled helpless and will-less in the dust-storm of the road!
2. Having no will; destitute of the faculty of volition.
1804. Anna Seward, Mem. Darwin, 89. Reasonless, will-less instinct, limited but undeviating.
1871. H. Macmillan, True Vine, vi. 240. Such a mindless, will-less, impersonal solitude would have yielded, so far as we can see, no happiness or glory to God.
Hence Will-lessly adv., Will-lessness.
1871. H. Macmillan, True Vine, vi. 245. He is to do consciously and willingly—what the plant does unconsciously and will-lessly.
1902. F. Legge, in Academy, 8 Nov., 509/2. Among the many signs of that hysteria which is perhaps the most distressing of all mental diseases, what is called abulia or ‘willessness’ is one of the most common.
