volunteer

Pluralvolunteers

Formsvolunteers, volunteering, volunteered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person who freely offers to take on a task or service, often without pay.

   During the flood, every available volunteer helped fill sandbags.

   The charity could not run without its dedicated volunteers.

   Similarhelper

   Note

   The word comes from Middle French voluntaire and Latin voluntārius, 'willing', or from voluntary plus the agent suffix -eer. Willingness is the core, and working without pay is a frequent consequence rather than the heart of the meaning. That is why one word can stretch to a soldier who chose to enlist, a donor in law, and even a plant that came up on its own.

2. 2
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To offer to do something of your own free will.

   He volunteered to stay late and finish the report.

   When help is needed, the neighbors always volunteer.

   Similaroffer

   Oppositerefuse, decline

   Note

   The everyday verb comes in three shapes. You can volunteer to do something, volunteer for a task (volunteer for doing the dishes), or simply volunteer with no object at all. The bare form is the one surveys use when they count who volunteered and how many hours they spent volunteering. It treats giving one's time as an activity in its own right.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To enroll oneself for service, especially in the military, of one's own free will.

   Many young men volunteered in the first weeks of the war.

   She decided to volunteer for the relief mission overseas.

   Similarenlist, enroll

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To offer something, especially information, without being prompted.

   The witness volunteered several facts the detective hadn't requested.

   I would not volunteer that information unless they ask directly.

   Similaroffer, provide, disclose, share

   Oppositewithhold

   Note

   Here the object is the thing offered, not a task: you volunteer an explanation, a fact, a name. The emphasis falls on the missing question, since whatever is volunteered was not asked for. That is why the verb often carries a note of caution. Witnesses and suspects are warned not to volunteer information, and an unprompted admission can say more than intended.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A person who joins military service by choice rather than by conscription, though still bound by military discipline once enlisted.

   The regiment was made up entirely of volunteers rather than draftees.

   As a volunteer, he could have stayed home but chose to serve.

   Similarenlistee

   Oppositeconscript, draftee

   Note

   In military use the contrast that matters is with the conscript. The choice lies in how a person enters service, not in how they serve. Once enlisted, a volunteer answers to the same discipline and regulations as anyone drafted. Keep it apart from the militia sense, where the volunteer is set against the regular soldier of a standing army rather than against the draftee.

6. 6
   verbcolloquialtransitive

   To offer someone else's services for a task, typically without their agreement.

   My manager volunteered the whole team for the weekend shift.

   They always volunteer the new hire for the worst assignments.

   Similarnominate

   Note

   A comic reversal of the word's whole idea: the person volunteered is exactly the one who did not choose. The construction is volunteer someone to do something, or volunteer someone for something, as in "My sister volunteered me to do the dishes." It belongs to casual speech and usually carries a wry complaint, or a joke at the conscript's expense.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A member of a country's organized militia who serves voluntarily, as distinct from a regular soldier in the standing army.

   The militia's volunteers mustered for drill twice a month.

   He served as a volunteer in the county militia for ten years.

   Similarmilitiaman

   Oppositeregular

   Note

   Here the opposite is the regular, not the conscript: the line runs between a country's standing army and its organized militia. Edward M. Coffman's The Regulars (2007) shows the pairing at work, with an army raising regiments of volunteers and drawing its officers from "regulars and volunteers" alike. The two categories served side by side, but they remained distinct.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   In law, a person who acts of their own free will without any legal obligation to do so, such as the donor of a gift.

   As a volunteer, she had no legal claim to repayment for the favor.

   The law offers little protection to volunteers who pay another's debt unasked.

   Note

   The law's volunteer is defined by what is missing: no legal duty to act and no consideration bargained for in return. A donor making a gift fits, and so does someone who pays another's debt unasked. The everyday warmth of the word drops away here. What matters is that the person stepped in uninvited, which usually leaves them with little claim to repayment.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A plant that grows on its own, without being deliberately sown or cultivated.

   A tomato volunteer came up in the compost bed this spring.

   Farmers often pull the volunteers that sprout from the previous crop.

   Note

   A gardener's and farmer's metaphor for the plant that turns up uninvited, as if it had offered its services. A volunteer is often the offspring of last season's crop, which explains its mixed welcome. A volunteer tomato in the compost bed is a small gift, while volunteers sprouting among a new crop get pulled like weeds.

10. 10
    verbintransitive

    Of a plant, to grow without being deliberately sown or cultivated.

    Potatoes left in the ground will volunteer the following season.

    Several squash plants volunteered where last year's pile had been.

    Note

    The verb takes the plant as its subject and needs no object: squash volunteered by the old pile, and potatoes left in the ground volunteer the next season. The growth comes from self-sown seed or from roots that survived in the soil, not from planting. It is the action behind the self-sown plant, so a gardener can track both the volunteers and where they volunteered.

11. 11
    nouncountable

    A native or resident of Tennessee, in the United States.

    Every Volunteer he met spoke fondly of the Smoky Mountains.

    The festival drew Volunteers from every corner of the state.

    SimilarTennessean

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