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/ˌwɪl.iːˈnɪl.iː/ · adverb
Whether desired or not; without regard for consequences or wishes of those affected; whether willingly or unwillingly..
Whenever I see a long handsome neck, willy nilly, the thought will come uppermost—What a capital neck for carving! Those cursed executions! One can't rid one's mind of them.
[I]f you love him not, then you can love me, and, therefore, can come to please yourself, willy-nilly. What! am I to be thwarted in such a trifle? Willy-nilly, I say, I will marry thee. Come—we waste the time.
The outer world is what we wake up to every morning of our lives, is the place where, willy-nilly, we must try to make our living.
The novel Alice in Wonderland describes a place where things happen willy-nilly.
Some writers chasing money churn out novels willy-nilly.
[S]omeone saw thy willy-nilly nun / Vying a tress against our golden fern.
O my God, if man be only / A willy-nilly current of sensations— / Reaction needs must follow revel—yet— / Why feel remorse, he, knowing that he must have / Moved in the iron grooves of Destiny?
Use willy-nilly when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Willy-nilly means Whether desired or not; without regard for consequences or wishes of those affected; whether willingly or unwillingly..
Common synonyms include nilly-willy, nolens volens, arbitrarily, haphazardly.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
Whenever I see a long handsome neck, willy nilly, the thought will come uppermost—What a capital neck for carving! Those cursed executions! One can't rid one's mind of them.
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