to will, wish, or intend: to settle on what one wants, often as a considered choice or firm purpose.
This is a word for wanting something, but it leans toward the deliberate end of wanting. It reaches past a passing wish to a settled intention, the kind of choice a person makes after weighing things and means to carry out. So the New Testament uses it for an official's ruling, a leader's resolve, a planned course of action, and supremely for God's deliberate purpose in choosing to act.
In ordinary use the line between this word and the more common word for wanting (thelo) is thin, and the two often overlap. Where a shade of difference shows, this word points more to a decision reached and held, while the other can stay closer to desire or willingness. The decision sense is why it sits naturally in legal and governing settings (a governor deciding a prisoner's fate) and in statements of what God has purposed to do.
Many of its strongest uses describe God's will not as a wish that may or may not happen, but as a fixed purpose that stands. When the New Testament says the Spirit gives gifts as he chooses, or that God brought believers to birth because he willed it, the word carries the weight of a purpose that decides the outcome.