velleity
English
WOTD – 1 July 2011
Etymology
From Medieval Latin velleitās, from Latin velle (“wish, will”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /vɛˈliːɪti/
Noun
velleity (countable and uncountable, plural velleities)
- The lowest degree of desire or volition, with no effort to act.
- 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow:
- This connoisseuse of “splendid weaknesses”, run not by any lust or even velleity but by vacuum: by the absence of human hope.
- 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow:
- A slight wish not followed by any effort to obtain.
- 1919, The Times, 24 Oct 1919, page 12, column A:
- The debate in the House of Lords would convert the impartial listener from any velleity towards single-chamber government.
- 2006, Howard Jacobson, Kalooki Nights, Vintage 2007, page 372:
- Who could have imagined then, in Crumpsall, that the ancient Jewish hope, ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ – for so long more a velleity than a hope, the feeblest and most unanticipated of anticipations – would be realised in their lifetime and that they would be able to stand here, under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers, but otherwise unimpeded, together?
- 1995, Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, Bantam Books 2008, page 47:
- The difficulty of getting here prevented people from coming on a velleity.
- 1919, The Times, 24 Oct 1919, page 12, column A:
Translations
lowest degree of desire
|
|
slight wish with no effort to obtain
|
|