Willy-nilly (idiom)

Willy-nilly is an English-language idiom and a slang which describes an activity, an action or event that is done in a disorganized, unplanned, or vacillating manner. The term is derived from Shakespearian expression "will ye, nill ye", which is a contraction that means “whether one wants to or not.”

It has a very similar meaning to other reduplicates, that also pertain to 'disorderly' and 'disorganized', such as pell-mell, helter-skelter, hurry-scurry and higgledy-piggledy, all originating in the post-medieval period. Moreover, the idiomatic phrase to-and-fro (and its gerund toing-and-froing), which originate in the 1820s, also have a similar sense of repetitive movement, instability and vacillation.