VOLUNTARY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Voluntary

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/vˈɑləntɛri/ Listen

Voluntary

adjective

1.

Of your own free will or design; done by choice; not forced or compelled. "Participation was voluntary" , "Voluntary manslaughter" , "Voluntary generosity in times of disaster" , "Voluntary social workers" , "A voluntary confession"

2.

Controlled by individual volition. "Voluntary muscles"

noun

(pl. voluntaries)

1.

(military) a person who freely enlists for service. Synonyms: military volunteer, volunteer.

2.

Composition (often improvised) for a solo instrument (especially solo organ) and not a regular part of a religious service or musical performance.

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Voluntary" Quotes from Famous Books

... part that night was a quiet one, the voluntary part of it, and strictly confined to the various little tea-table courtesies which with him might indeed be called involuntary. But it so happened that the Vulcan carried out quite a knot of his former friends—gentlemen who knew him well, ...

— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... include about 175,000,000 individuals. The adhesion of Italy to the vast union would not be inconceivable, and then the combination of the United States of Europe, founded on a voluntary commercial union, would be ...

— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the restrictions upon a class have become hurtful to the whole, when their removal is called for because society is in need of the energies thus set free, then takes place a more or less general uprising of the oppressed and restricted ones, apparently entirely spontaneous and voluntary, in reality having its origin partly at least in the claim which society is making upon the hitherto restricted class to take up ...

— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... had extended its wings after striking its prey, and from the way in which it still kept exercising them, the spectators began to think that its singular descent, and its remaining over the carcass in that cowering attitude, were neither of them voluntary ...

— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... encourage you to believe that when those self-appointed counsellors—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—returned to their respective homes, they had cause to congratulate themselves upon their cordial welcome to Job's bank of ashes, or felt bountifully repaid for their voluntary mission ...

— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

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