[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The state or condition of being unwilling, reluctant, or loath; reluctance; disinclination.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., I. iii. 149. Norfolke: for thee remaines a heauier dombe, Which I with some vnwillingnesse pronounce.
c. 1600. Chalkhill, Thealma & Cl., 51. How fain she would have … made Her grief, though with unwillingness, to set Open the floodgates of her speech.
1615. E. S., Britain’s Buss, E 2 b. The difficulties that Vnwillingnes hath obiected.
1694. F. Bragge, Disc. Parables, VII. 248. Unwillingness in doing anything, as if ’twere … forced from one, rather than proceeded from a free inclination.
1720. Wodrow, Corr. (1843), II. 532. Which made me apprehend his unwillingness was not so great as was talked of.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, V. 52. [He] had … been forced into the party, though with added unwillingness.
1825. Lamb, Elia, II. Wedding. To this unwillingness … may be traced the difference of opinion on this point.
1883. F. M. Peard, Contrad., I. 34. Leigh went towards it with some unwillingness.
b. Const. to, or with that and clause.
In very frequent use with to from c. 1650.
(a) 1594. Southwell, M. Magd. Funeral Teares, 6. The vnwillingnesse that his image should die with her.
a. 1665. J. Goodwin, Filled w. the Spirit (1670), 313. [These] do not argue any the least degree of unwillingness in God that men should be saved.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. xii. 80. My Unwillingness that one Theme should detain us any longer.
1884. Leeds Merc., 24 Oct., 4/4. His profound unwillingness that the question … should be mooted.
(b) 1605. Ld. Mountague, in Facsimiles Nat. MSS., IV. 10. The unwillingnesse I sawe in her to my goeing downe.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, I. § 11. 16. Gods unwillingnesse to plague the righteous with the unrighteous.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 427, ¶ 1. The Unwillingness to receive good Tidings.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xxii. IV. 785. An unwillingness to run any great risk.
1882. Besant, All Sorts, xxxiv. (1898), 236. Unwillingness to admit new things … and reluctance to unlearn old things.
