wills
- 1Plural of will.
The estate office stores hundreds of signed wills in a fireproof vault.
Several conflicting wills emerged after the old man died.
Note
A regular plural, but it counts only some of the noun's meanings. Legal documents are easy to count: a vault of signed wills, several conflicting wills after a death. The faculty of choice and firmness of purpose are usually left uncounted, so a plural form most often means paperwork rather than willpower.
- 2Third-person singular simple present of will.
The dying man wills his entire fortune to a charity he admired.
Through sheer focus, she wills the trembling in her hands to stop.
Note
Only the full verb takes this ending. The auxiliary of the future and of habit (she will go, he will sit for hours) never adds -s, so he wills always signals the lexical verb. It can mean forcing something to happen through determination, or leaving property by testament, as in wills his fortune to a charity. The rarer literary sense of wishing for something belongs here too.
Showing meanings only.
wills is a form of will
will, noun: A formal declaration of how one's property is to be disposed of after death, and the legal document that records it ('is old Hannah in the will?'). Full entry
- Forms
- willwills plural
- Spelling
- will → wills: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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