Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Said or done on purpose; deliberate: synonym: voluntary.
- adjective Obstinately bent on having one's own way.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun etc. See
wilful , etc.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of set purpose; self-determined; voluntary.
- adjective Governed by the will without yielding to reason; obstinate; perverse; inflexible; stubborn; refractory.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Done in a
manner which wasintended . - adjective
Intentional . - adjective Stubborn.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective done by design
- adjective habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Are you familiar with the term 'willful blindness?' asked Liberal Democrat Adrian Sanders.
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Adrian Sanders, a Liberal Democrat MP, asked James Murdoch if he was familiar with the term "willful blindness," a legal term referring to executives who purposefully hide behind the excuse of not knowing.
Murdochs Are Grilled Cassell Bryan-Low 2011
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During last week's hearing, James Murdoch was asked if he was familiar with the term "willful blindness," which was used to describe the behavior of senior executives at Enron, who allegedly averted their eyes from wrongdoing.
NYT > Home Page By ROBERT MACKEY 2011
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During last week's hearing, James Murdoch was asked if he was familiar with the term "willful blindness," which was used to describe the behavior of senior executives at Enron who averted their eyes from wrongdoing.
NYT > Home Page By ROBERT MACKEY 2011
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The meaning of the word "willful" is notoriously murky see, e.g., the multitudinous Supreme Court cases over the word, so the statute would be improved by using a more detailed synonym.
Ars Technica Ars Staff 2011
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Murray - announced that they were going to flesh out the original by changing dialogue, adding back stories, and having a new, more upbeat ending, Stephen Sondheim got so angry he wrote to the New York Times attacking what he called willful ignorance and arrogance.
NPR Topics: News 2011
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Murray - announced that they were going to flesh out the original by changing dialogue, adding back stories, and having a new, more upbeat ending, Stephen Sondheim got so angry he wrote to the New York Times attacking what he called willful ignorance and arrogance.
NPR Topics: News 2011
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Congressman Rush Holt, D-New Jersey, Thursday accused the Pentagon of what he called "willful blindness" in not acting faster to identify and correct the problems and fully report them.
CNN.com 2011
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Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience.
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In studying the video, my political side would like to believe Murdoch's performance on Tuesday was all hubris topped off by an "old man act" in the name of willful denial.
Michael Shaw: Reading the Pictures: Murdoch Testimony: Missing a Few Marbles? Michael Shaw 2011
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