Would

sb. [The subj. of WILL v.¹ used substantively.] The feeling or expression of a conditional or undecided desire or intention.

1390.  Gower, Conf., III. 32. Bot yit is noght mi feste al plein, Bot al of woldes and of wisshes, Therof have I my fulle disshes.

1626.  Fenner, Hidden Manna (1656), 58. Thou hast a setled will to sinne, but a sorry would, or a months minde to repent.

a. 1653.  Binning, Serm. (1735), 559/2. Your Woulds and Wishes after Christ and Salvation … are not the real Exercises of your Soul’s flying unto him for Salvation.

1864.  Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1866), 131. If all my ‘woulds,’ dear Jones, were changed to ‘coulds,’ I’d deck thy bungalow with Europe goods.

1876.  Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, Poet. & Imag., Wks. (Bohn), III. 151. All writings must be in a degree exoteric, written to a human should or would, instead of to the fatal is.

  b.  With the, denoting desire or intention in contrast to duty or necessity.

1753–4.  Richardson, Grandison, II. xvii. 127. But so it will always be with silly girls, that distinguish not between the would and the should.

1831.  Carlyle, Misc. Ess., Early Ger. Lit. (1872), III. 188. When man, hemmed-in between the Would and the Should, or the Must, painfully hesitates.