Volitive

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈvɑlətɪv/

Definitions

1. Involving the power to make conscious choices or express intentions
2. Pertaining to the faculty or act of exercising personal choice or decision-making
3. Connected with the mental process of expressing desires or intentions

Etymology: "Volitive" descends from Latin "volo," meaning "I want" or "I wish," the same root behind "volition" and "benevolent." The adjective was built in Medieval Latin as "volitivus," using the suffix "-ivus" to turn the verb into a description of a capacity or disposition, the "wanting" faculty of a mind. The more striking twist is that the Latin term was not a fresh invention. Medieval Scholastic philosophers were translating the Ancient Greek "thelētikos," from "thélēsis," "a will or a willing." Greek philosophers had already needed a word for the part of the mind that wills, and the scholars writing in Latin found a close equivalent in "volo," then coined "volitivus" to carry the idea across. In English the word is a deliberately technical adjective, used by philosophers and psychologists to describe the will as an active faculty, separate from simply knowing or feeling something.

Synonyms: intentional, deliberate