# intention
## English
### Alternative forms

* entention (obsolete)

### Etymology

From Middle English entencioun, intention, from Old French entencion, from Latin intentiō, intentiōnem. Compare intent.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ɪnˈtɛnʃən/
** Audio (US):(file)
* Hyphenation: in‧ten‧tion
* Rhymes: -ɛnʃən
* Homophone: intension

### Noun

intention (countable and uncountable, plural intentions)
* A course of action that a person intends to follow.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:intention
    My intention was to marry a wealthy widow.
    It’s easy to promise anything when you have no intention of fulfilling any of it.
** a. 1784, attributed to Samuel Johnson
    Hell is paved with good intentions.
** 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:“My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
** 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 3, in Death on the Centre Court:It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless. And results are all that concern me. […]”
** 2023 October 12, HarryBlank, “Fire in the Hole”, in SCP Foundation‎, archived from the original on 22 May 2024:Zevala was ablaze, and all the insurgents — as they called themselves — were scurrying about like chickens with their heads cut off. There was talk of an attack. A second invading force. Perhaps the Foundation. Perhaps something worse.That something worse had every intention of worsening further still. There were many, many more things to burn before she and her sister were alone on the cliffside.
* The goal or purpose.
    The intention of this legislation is to boost the economy.
** 2008 June 1, A. Dirk Moses, “Preface”, in Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History, Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page x:Though most of the cases here cover European encounters with non-Europeans, it is not the intention of the book to give the impression that genocide is a function of European colonialism and imperialism alone.
* (obsolete) Tension; straining, stretching.
** 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:, I.iii.3:
    cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver, causeth crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations […].
* A stretching or bending of the mind toward an object or a purpose (an intent); closeness of application; fixedness of attention; earnestness.
** 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 2, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC, book I, page 19:it is attention : when the mind with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on all sides, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitation of other ideas, it is that we call intention or study
* (obsolete) The object toward which the thoughts are directed; end; aim.
** 1732, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Nature of Ailments …, Prop. II, p.159:
    In a Word, the most part of chronical Distempers proceed from Laxity of Fibres; in which Case the principal Intention is to restore the Tone of the solid Parts; […].
* (obsolete) Any mental apprehension of an object.
* (medicine) The process of the healing of a wound.
** 2007, Carie Ann Braun, Cindy Miller Anderson, Pathophysiology: Functional Alterations in Human Health, page 49:When healing occurs by primary intention, the wound is basically closed with all areas of the wound connecting and healing simultaneously.
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing. (See the entry for “intention”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

#### Derived terms

* counter-intention
* intentional
* paradoxical intention
* secondary intention
* the road to hell is paved with good intentions
* well-intentioned

#### Related terms

* intend
* intent
* well-intended

#### Translations
### Verb

intention (third-person singular simple present intentions, present participle intentioning, simple past and past participle intentioned)
* To intend.

#### Translations
### References

* “intention”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “intention”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

## Finnish
### Noun

intention
* genitive singular of intentio

## French
### Etymology

Inherited from Middle French entention, from Old French entencion, borrowed from Latin intentiōnem. Respelled intention in Middle French to more closely match the Classical Latin form.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ɛ̃.tɑ̃.sjɔ̃/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

intention f (plural intentions)
* intention
    dans l’intention de devenir roiwith the intention of becoming king
    prêter des intentions à quelqu’unto accuse someone of intentions ("motives")

#### Derived terms

* à l’intention de
* c’est l’intention qui compte
* intentionné
* intentionnel
* procès d’intention

### Further reading

* “intention”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Middle French
### Noun

intention f (plural intentions)
* Alternative form of entention

## Swedish
### Noun

intention c
* (often in the plural) an intention (planned course of action)
    goda/onda/oklara intentionergood/evil/unclear intentions

#### See also

* avsikt (more idiomatic for "it was not my intention" and the like)

### References

* intention in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* intention in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
* intention in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)