How to Use willful in a Sentence

willful

adjective

• He has shown a willful disregard for other people's feelings.
• Most of the non-willful fines were in the hundreds of dollars.
  — oregonlive, 20 Apr. 2022
• Her Ma comes across as brash, crass, willful and nasty in all the best ways.
  — Mike Scott, NOLA.com, 14 Dec. 2020
• At the top of this list might well be his willful destruction of the Russian Army.
  — Michael Krepon, Forbes, 14 Mar. 2022
• That was the first act of Tulsa’s willful forgetting: to bury the truth of what had happened.
  — Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Mar. 2021
• This season focuses on the willful delusion of the wealthy.
  — Lauren Jackson, New York Times, 11 Dec. 2022
• Her mother, 70, was booked on three counts of torture and three counts of willful cruelty to a child.
  — Laura L. Davis, USA TODAY, 10 Nov. 2022
• The greed and willful blindness must be laid at the feet of his investors and financial partners.
  — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 14 Apr. 2021
• In effect, the public was dragged from willful ignorance by the truth.
  — The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2021
• Mayorkas, 64, faced two charges from the House: willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust.
  — Kyler Alvord, Peoplemag, 7 Feb. 2024
• Adella Tom was booked on three counts each of torture and willful cruelty to a child.
  — Gina Martinez, CBS News, 10 Nov. 2022
• And so there's a willful destructiveness as much as there is a very strong creative urge in her.
  — Jessica Wang, EW.com, 10 Jan. 2023
• Mayorkas, 64, now faces two charges from the House: willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust.
  — Kyler Alvord, Peoplemag, 14 Feb. 2024
• If the violation can be proved to be knowing or willful the amount is tripled.
  — Peter J Reilly, Forbes, 13 Feb. 2024
• One was unruly, willful and disobedient, and the other was calm and easy to be around.
  — Haben Kelati, Washington Post, 14 Feb. 2024
• Both are charged with murder and willful harming of a child, according to jail records.
  — Fox News, 12 Nov. 2021
• But the willful swirl and the withholding of coherence are too extreme here.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 2 June 2021
• Leda observes Nina on the beach with her young daughter, who seems willful and moody.
  — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 5 Sep. 2021
• Where there is a will there is a way, but on some occasions being too willful can cause problems.
  — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, 20 Aug. 2020
• So be aware that the concept of willful endangerment could put you over that limit.
  — Lew Sichelman, Miami Herald, 3 June 2024
• So this willful denial of what movies actually are has set in.
  — Zack Sharf, Variety, 17 July 2023
• If a jury finds that Equifax's error was willful, the company could be on the hook for up to $1,000 more in damages for each defendant.
  — Irina Ivanova, CBS News, 4 Aug. 2022
• Putin’s key delusion is his willful failure to understand—and accept—how Ukraine has come to be.
  — Tarik Cyril Amar, Time, 4 Mar. 2022
• Reagan was the victim of a tragic crime, Trump of what looks to many like willful and reckless courting of disaster.
  — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2020
• The continued embrace was a willful act by a public all too eager to dole out second and third chances to a winner.
  — Kurt Streeter, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2021
• Students often don't show up for reasons that aren't willful: Some struggle with getting a ride to school.
  — Lily Altavena, Detroit Free Press, 17 Nov. 2021
• Now he is guaranteed that the final weeks of the campaign will see the pandemic front and center, along with his willful dismissal of it.
  — Dan Balz, Anchorage Daily News, 4 Oct. 2020
• Her fascination with these objects didn’t strike me as sad, or clingy, but as willful.
  — Lauren Oyler, The New Yorker, 14 July 2021
• Adorno, in his own writing about his time in Italy, was more sensitive to the kind of willful projections his countrymen were making onto the place, which was already overrun by tourism.
  — Thomas Meaney, The New Yorker, 25 Nov. 2024
• He was indicted last week in U.S. court in Virginia on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information — felony charges that can can carry significant prison sentences.
  — Eric Tucker, Chicago Tribune, 13 Nov. 2024

Last Updated: 12 Jan 2025