Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Done of one's own accord; voluntary.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See free will, under will.
  • Made, performed, or done freely or of one's own motion or accord; voluntary.
  • Of or pertaining to the metaphysical doctrine of the freedom of the will: as, the freewill controversy. See will.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of free will.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective done of your own accord

Etymologies

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Examples

  • To hold a belief in a libertarian freewill is to hold to an indeterminism at a much higher level than the quantum mechanical, namely, the neural.

    Testing the Freedom to Choose, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • Most folks think freewill is what makes us human aiguy: Most people have no training in either philosophy or science, and really don't understand the issues.

    Bunny and a Book 2008

  • I think people understand the issue pretty well, since what they mean when they talk about intelligence and freewill is human-like intelligence and freewill, and all of us have an intimate, empirical idea about what that means even if they might not be able to articulate it to your satisfaction.

    Bunny and a Book 2008

  • I think people understand the issue pretty well, since what they mean when they talk about intelligence and freewill is human-like intelligence and freewill, and all of us have an intimate, empirical idea about what that means even if they might not be able to articulate it to your satisfaction.

    Bunny and a Book 2008

  • It does not predict metaphysically meaningful freewill, which is not at all what we see.

    Of flies and free will - The Panda's Thumb 2007

  • Square is anti-democracy, and rejects the idea of freewill, believing instead that people are born with certain proclivities for behaviors.

    ideonexus.com » 2007 » 7月 2007

  • I came away, however, understanding that the notion of freewill could be an illusory concept, if an individual as a child, was conditioned to accept that violence, emotional and physical pain, degradation, and hopelessness was simply the stuff of existence.

    Protect the Roosters! To hell with domestic violence victims! 2005

  • [FN#130] Here "Istitá'ah" would mean capability of action, i.e. freewill, which is a mere word like "free-trade."

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • “Istitá‘ah” would mean capability of action, i.e. freewill, which is a mere word like “free-trade.”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Yet, now I've heard people of religion argue that it's the Preist's "freewill" and therefore God is not responsible.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2010

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  • A prickly concept if ever there was one. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, as Einstein paraphrased it, “A human can very well do what he wants, but cannot will what he wants.�?

    January 3, 2007