nill

• IPA^(key): /nɪl/
• Rhymes: -ɪl
• Homophones: nil, Nill

From Middle English nillen, from Old English nyllan (“to not want”), corresponding to ne +‎ will. Cognate with Old Frisian nelle. Unrelated to Latin nolo which is constructed the same way, but the morphemes that compound both verbs are cognates.

nill (third-person singular simple present nills, present participle nilling, simple past and past participle nilled or (obsolete) nould)

1. (modal auxiliary, obsolete) To be unwilling; will not (+ infinitive).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 465:

     I here auow thee neuer to forſake.
     Ill weares he armes, that nill them vſe for Ladies ſake.

   • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Twelfth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC, stanza 61, page 225:

     What I nill tell, you aske (quoth ſhe) in vaine,
     Nor mou’d by praier, nor conſtraind by powre […]

2. (intransitive, archaic) To be unwilling.
   • 1955 October 20, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Appendix A”, in The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings […], New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published December 1978, →ISBN, page 427:

     I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: […]

3. (transitive, archaic) To reject, refuse, negate.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 280:

     Certes (ſayd he) I n’ill thine offred grace,
     Ne to be made ſo happy doe intend […].

• willy-nilly

Compare Irish néal and Scottish Gaelic neul (“star, light”). Compare nebula.

nill

1. Shining sparks thrown off from melted brass.
2. Scales of hot iron from the forge.

From Medieval Latin nil and nihil (“nothing”) to represent German nichts and nix (“nothing”), confused with Latin nix (“snow, snow-white thing”), used for white forms of zinc oxide. Doublet of nihil album.

nill (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Synonym of zinc oxide, particularly white forms used in medicine and cosmetics.

• Edward H[enry] Knight (1877) “Nill”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary. […], volumes II (GAS–REA), New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton […], →OCLC.
• “† nill, n.².”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.