What does waywardness mean?
Waywardness is the quality of being self-willed, capricious, or unwilling to follow an expected course. It commonly describes people, especially young people, whose behavior seems unpredictable, rebellious, or resistant to ordinary discipline. The word can be affectionate when it describes an imaginative or unconventional spirit, but it often has a faintly censorious tone, suggesting defiance, restlessness, or moral irregularity. Waywardness is also used for winds, animals, rivers, and other things perceived as straying or changing direction unpredictably. Although it can refer to deliberate resistance, the word may also imply a general disposition rather than a single act of disobedience. Its literary character makes it more evocative than terms such as willfulness or unpredictability: it presents deviation not merely as a failure to obey but as an insistence on an unpredictable or independent course.
nounThe quality or state of being wayward: self-willed, capricious, or inclined to depart from an expected course.
- Self-willed or capricious behavior, especially behavior that resists direction, convention, or an expected course.
"Her early travels were marked by an irrepressible waywardness that eventually settled into a disciplined career."
"The novel traces the waywardness of a privileged teenager whose rebellion eventually deepens into self-destruction."
"Critics saw the composer's waywardness as a source of both innovation and disorder."
Rare; used when referring to separate instances of unconventional or self-willed conduct.
"The memoir recounts the small waywardnesses of a rebellious adolescence."
The word began with a traveler turning away from the intended path; centuries later, it became a label for a person doing the same.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does waywardness come from?
Waywardness was formed in English by adding the noun-forming suffix -ness to wayward. Wayward comes through Middle English from Old English wēgeweard, meaning “turned away,” with elements corresponding to “way” and “toward.” The word shares this origin with waywardly, while the deeper ancestry of its “way” element is also reflected in the cognate wain.
Related word forms
How waywardness is actually used
The noun is literary and often carries a mildly disapproving or nostalgic connotation. It can suggest deliberate eccentricity, an aversion to restraint, or a tendency to behave unpredictably.