Definition of "velleity" []

• Volition at its lowest level. (noun)
• A mere wish or inclination. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "We may well say: I would desire to be young; but we do not say: I desire to be young; seeing that this is not possible; and this motion is called a wishing, or as the Scholastics term it a velleity, which is nothing else but a commencement of willing, not followed out, because the will, by reason of impossibility or extreme difficulty, stops her motion, and ends it in this simple affection of a wish."
• "Wherefore such a will should rather be called a "velleity" than an absolute will; because one would will (_vellet_) if there were no obstacle."
• "Therese's "desire" to be a priest was in the field of devotional velleity - nothing approaching the field of voluntas."