Willing means you will do the thing, and you will not make a fuss about doing it. Ask a willing neighbour to put the bins out and the bins go out.
It nearly always takes TO plus a verb: willing to help, willing to wait, willing to pay a bit more. The opposite is unwilling, and to do something willingly is to do it without being pushed. Willing also describes hands and hearts rather than whole people — willing hands make light work. Two fixed phrases carry it: God willing means if nothing goes wrong, and the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak is the excuse of everyone who meant to get up early. Keep willing apart from wilful, which means stubborn and set on having your own way.
1adjectivewillingReady and glad to do something, without needing to be persuaded.~98%
“She was willing to drive us both to the station at six in the morning.”
2adjectivegivenGiven or done readily, without holding back.~2%
“The job got done fast, thanks to a dozen willing hands.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 13 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Willing is the old present participle of will. Old English willende came from willan, the verb that became our will. So a willing helper is, word for word, a wanting helper: someone whose will is already pointed that way.
Old English
willende
English, today
willing
adjective Old English willende, present participle of willan*
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA