willer

plural willers

1. One who wills; who causes by an act of will or willpower.

   […] he that shall act, or cause that Law to be executed, makes himself the Commander, or willer of it, which was originally the Will of others:

   1648, Robert Filmer, The Free-holders Grand Inquest, London, published 1679, page 62

   4 more examples

   For he sayeth vnto Moses: I wyll haue mercy on whom I haue mercy, and haue compassion on whom I wyl haue compassion. It is not therfore of the wyller, nother of the runner, but of God the shewer of mercy.

   1538, Myles Coverdale, transl., The Newe Testamente both Latine and Englyshe, Romans 9.16

   If the universe shows God to be a great thinker, there is good reason why we should take the next step, and affirm that God is also a great Willer. First of all, we do not know anything about thinkers that are not willers. Thought, so far as we have ken of it at all, is always accompanied by volition.

   1899, William Newton Clarke, Can I Believe in God the Father?, New York: Scribner, Lecture 2, p. 84

   What impressed me particularly was the mental and muscular superiority of these two officers. Despite their age—the mate sixty-nine and the second mate at least fifty—their minds and their bodies had acted with the swiftness and accuracy of steel springs. They were potent. They were iron. They were perceivers, willers, and doers.

   1914, Jack London, chapter 3, in The Mutiny of the Elsinore

   Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever remember the night, first night, the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer with the willed, and in an instant (fiat!) light shall flood the world.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 395

   Synonyms: desirer

2. One who leaves an inheritance by writing a will.

   For if the actuality of a last will and testament takes effect only with the fact of the death of the willer and testator, then strictly speaking, what decides inheritance is not the will of the giver but his decease.

   2002, Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness

   2 more examples

   The father died. The females three Were much in haste the will to see. They read, and read, but still Saw not the willer's will. For could it well be understood That each of this sweet sisterhood, When she possess'd her part no more, Should to her mother pay it o'er?

   1880, Jean de La Fontaine, J W M. Gibbs, The fables of La Fontaine, tr. by E. Wright, page 48

   Also, if the heirs were two(2)sons, and a grand daughter her father died during the life of the willer, also the value of the compulsory will for her is one third (1/3ʳᵈ.) of the heirship, because its^([sic]) the share of her farther^([sic]) in the heirship if he was alive.

   2012, Papa Murphy, Inheritance Laws in an Islamic Society, →ISBN, page 229

plural Willers

1. A surname.