voluntary

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   controlled by individual volition

   voluntary motions

2. 2
   adj

   Done, given, or acting of one's own free will.

   September 10, 1828, Nathaniel William Taylor, Sermon delivered in the Chapel of Yale College That sin or guilt pertains exclusively to voluntary action is the true principle of orthodoxy.

3. 3
   adj

   Done by design or intention; intentional.

   If a man accidentally kills another by lopping a tree, it is not voluntary manslaughter.

4. 4
   adj

   Working or done without payment.

   Wikimedia is a voluntary service.

5. 5
   adj

   Endowed with the power of willing.

   […] God did not work as a necessary, but a voluntary agent, intending before-hand, and decreeing with himself, that which did outwardly proceed from him.

6. 6
   adj

   Of or relating to voluntarism.

   a voluntary church, in distinction from an established or state church

7. 7
   adv

   Voluntarily.

   And all that els was pretious and deare, / The sea unto him voluntary brings [...].

8. 8
   adj

   of your own free will or design

Etymology

From Middle English voluntarie, from Old French volontaire, from Latin voluntārius (“willing, of free will”), from voluntās (“will, choice, desire”), from volēns, present participle of volo (“to will”). Displaced native Old English selfwille (literally “self-willed”).