purpose
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɝpəs/
ipa: /ˈpɜːpəs/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)pəs
ipa: /ˈpɜ.pəs/
ipa: /ˈpɜ.poʊs/
note: Dublin
ipa: /ˈpʊː(ɹ)pəs/
Forms: form: purposes
Etymology: From Middle English purpos, from Old French purposer (“to propose”) (with conjugation altered based on poser), from Latin prō- (“forth”) + pōnere (“place, put”), hence Latin prōpōnō, prōpōnere.
Senses: examples: text: What is the purpose of your visit?
text: The device can be used for both civilian and military purposes.
text: In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.
ref: 2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:
synonyms: end
glosses: The end for which something is done, is made or exists.
examples: text: The exceptionally small gate-leg table served the purpose of a tea table admirably.
text: The purpose of the gall-bladder is obviously to permit the accumulation of bile, when it is not wanted in the intestine; and we find it most constantly present in those tribes of animals, which live upon animal food
ref: 1846, William Benjamin Carpenter, Elements of Physiology: Including Physiological Anatomy, for the Use of the Medical Student, page 281:
text: As with all life forms, the sole purpose of a virus is to ensure reproduction in kind.
ref: 1982, Lloyd C. Olson, Virus Infections: Modern Concepts and Status, volume 49, page 2:
text: Is it the purpose of mosquitoes to ultimately provide calories to large birds of prey?
ref: 2009, John Kricher, The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth, page 18:
text: The purpose of the dance is to attract attention to the returning worker bee so she can share the odor of the nectar with other workers who will then follow the odor trail to the source.
ref: 2011, Stephen Denning, The Secret Language of Leadership, page 254:
text: Furthermore, since the purpose of DNA is to translate to proteins, a valid solution on its origin needs to describe the mechanism by which the complementary base pairs map to amino acids.
ref: 2020, Charles Schaper, Design of DNA, Genetic Codes, and Life Function, page 4:
glosses: Function, role.
examples: text: Before being hospitalized, Thea filled her days with work that gave her life purpose. Whether it was teaching, writing, or investing in relationships, Thea was busily and actively engaged in activity that she could feel good about.
ref: 2011 October 1, Sarah Jobe, Creating with God: The Holy Confusing Blessedness of Being Pregnant, Paraclete Press, →ISBN:
text: This place gave him purpose, gave him joy. It was both his life and his lifeline and she was both thrilled and relieved that he'd recovered enough to be able to maintain the place.
ref: 2015, Donna Kauffman, Snowflake Bay, Zebra Books, →ISBN, page 338:
text: A sense of belonging helps to ground the individual by providing a particular way of being in the world which, in turn, helps individuals to make meaning of their life experiences and gives them a sense of purpose, including a sense of responsibility to the group to which one belongs.
ref: 2016 January 8, Marian de Souza, Spirituality in Education in a Global, Pluralised World, Routledge, →ISBN:
text: He wanted her to know that she gave him purpose, gave him the will to live after he lost Kaylah. He wanted her to know that, no, the diamond wasn't precious enough to symbolize how much he cherished her breath,[…]
ref: 2021 August 13, O. Curtis Jackson, TEN TIMES OVER, Writers Republic LLC, →ISBN:
synonyms: meaning
qualifier: Sense of having a
glosses: meaning for existing or doing something.
examples: text: […]purſued his vnneighbourly purpoſe in ſuch ſort: that hee being the ſtronger perſwader, and ſhe (belike) too credulous in beleeuing or elſe ouer-feeble in reſiſting, from priuate imparlance, they fell to action; and continued their cloſe fight a long while together, vnſeene and vvithout ſuſpition, no doubt to their equall ioy and contentment.
ref: 1620, Giovanni Bocaccio, translated by John Florio, The Decameron, Containing an Hundred Pleaſant Nouels: Wittily Diſcourſed, Betweene Seuen Honourable Ladies, and Three Noble Gentlemen, Isaac Iaggard, Nouell 8, The Eighth Day:
text: Perhaps you have heard that there was once some purpose of marriage between the Duc de Joyeuse and myself; it is of that which I have to tell.
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 190:
text: United began with more purpose in the early phase of the second half and Liverpool were grateful for Glen Johnson's crucial block from Young's goalbound shot.
ref: 2013 September 1, Phil McNulty, BBC Sport:
text: Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.
ref: 2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:
glosses: Resolution; determination.
examples: text: […]he was woont to ſpeake plaine, and to the purpoſe (like an honeſt man and a ſouldier) […]
ref: 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:
text: The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my Readers with an account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the Knight himself to inform the Court, as to give him a figure in my eye[…]
ref: 1711 July 31 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “FRIDAY, July 20, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 122; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 151:
text: The duke was restless and thoughtful the whole evening, often changed the discourse; like an absent man; and abruptly, quite from the purpose; asked the marshal, "If in his military expeditions, he had ever undertaken any affair of consequence in the night."
ref: 1770, Christof Hermann von Manstein, Memoirs of Russia, Historical, Political and Military, from the Year MDCCXXVII to MDCCXLIV, page 267:
text: But now, forasmuch as you have stopt up a few shards in these your last tedious commentaries, though very hardly and quite from the purpose, […]
ref: 1817, Legh Richmond, A Selection from the Writings of the Reformers and Early Protestant Divines of the Church of England, page 296:
glosses: The subject of discourse; the point at issue.
Synonyms: sense: end
word: aim
word: goal
word: object
word: target
sense: intention
word: aim
word: plan
word: intention
sense: determination
word: determination
sense: determination
word: intention
sense: determination
word: resolution
sense: subject of discourse
word: matter
sense: subject of discourse
word: subject
sense: subject of discourse
word: topic
word: reason for doing something
Hyponyms: common purpose
metapurpose
Derived terms: all-purpose
all-purpose flour
by-purpose
cross-purpose
cross purpose
dative of purpose
defeat the purpose
dual-purpose
fit for purpose
for all intents and purposes
game with a purpose
general-purpose
infinitive of purpose
multi-purpose
on purpose
purpose-built
purposeful
purposeless
purpose-like
purpose loan
purposely
purpose-made
purpose statement
purposive
repurpose
special-purpose
special-purpose entity
special-purpose vehicle
to no purpose
to the purpose