purposive

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Serving a particular purpose

   Serving a particular purpose; useful; adapted to a given purpose, especially through natural evolution.

   • Irresistably it came to me again that beauty, far from being wasted, was purposive, that this purpose was of a redeeming kind, and that some one who was pleased co-operated with it for my personal benefit.
   • As we saw in our discussion of the FAKE GUN example in chapter 19, there are natural dimensions to our categories for objects: […] purposive, based on the uses we can make of an object in a given situation.
2. 2

   Done or performed with a conscious purpose or intent.

   • Other ecclesiastics [...] were similarly accepting of a space for purposive and beneficent human action and betterment in a disenchanted world.
3. 3

   Pertaining to purpose, as reflected in behaviour or mental activity.

   • Ursula could not believe the air in her nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense murderous coldness.
   • The question at once arises whether medieval thinkers really believed that what we now call inanimate objects were sentient and purposive.
4. ›+ 4 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Pertaining to or demonstrating purpose.

      • The world was generally agreed to be a purposive one, responsive to the wishes of its Creator […].
   2. 5

      Possessed of a firm purpose.

   3. 6

      Of a clause or conjunction

      Of a clause or conjunction: expressing purpose.

   4. 7

      A mood indicating a purpose of the course of activity expressed by the verb.

      • This purposive was described by speakers as referring to the action which can be observed at the moment of speech; this is why it is termed ‘visual’.

The neighborhood

• neighborpurposeful