Etymology

self-will

Today it means: The quality of being willful and ignoring opposition. Full definition →

Middle English self-wil ← Old English sylfwill ← Proto-West Germanic *selbawilljō
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*selbawiljô“self-will”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*selbawilljō
  3. Old English · inherited fromsylfwill
  4. Middle English · inherited fromself-wil
  5. English todayself-will

From Middle English self-wil, self-wille, from Old English sylfwill, selfwill, selfwille (“self-will”), from Proto-West Germanic *selbawilljō, from Proto-Germanic *selbawiljô (“self-will”), equivalent to self- + will. Cognate with Old High German selbwillo, selpwillo, Old Norse sjalfvili.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.