voluntary

comparative more voluntary · superlative most voluntary

1. 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.

   1 more example

   She fell, to lust a voluntary prey.

   1726, Alexander, transl. Pope, “Book III”, in The Odyssey, translation of original by Homer, line 345; republished in The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902, page 540

2. Done by design or intention; intentional.

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

   Synonyms: intentional

3. Working or done without payment.

   Wikimedia is a voluntary service.

   Synonyms: honorary, pro bono, unpaid, unsalaried, unwaged

4. 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.

   1594, Richard Hooker, “Book 1”, in Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, London: John Walthoe et al, published 1782, page 5

   Synonyms: autonomous, spontaneous

5. Of or relating to voluntarism.

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

comparative more voluntary · superlative most voluntary

1. obsoleteVoluntarily.

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

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

plural voluntaries

1. entertainmentA short piece of music, often having improvisation, played on a solo instrument.
2. A volunteer.
3. A supporter of voluntarism; a voluntarist.