purposive

English

Etymology

From purpose +‎ -ive. Compare purpositive.

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpəːpəsɪv/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɚpəsɪv/

Adjective

purposive (comparative more purposive, superlative most purposive)

Serving a particular purpose; adapted to a given purpose, especially through natural evolution. [from 19th c.]
- 1918, Algernon Blackwood, chapter 9, in The Garden of Survival‎^[1], London: Macmillan, page 142:
  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.
- 1980, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, chapter 24, in Metaphors We Live By:
  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.
Done or performed with a conscious purpose or intent. [from 19th c.]
Synonyms: deliberate, intentional, purposeful; see also Thesaurus:intentional
- 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Appendix. The Principles of Newspeak.”, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001, page 273:
  It would have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.
- 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 191:
  Other ecclesiastics [...] were similarly accepting of a space for purposive and beneficent human action and betterment in a disenchanted world.
(psychology) Pertaining to purpose, as reflected in behaviour or mental activity. [from 19th c.]
- 1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 29, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for subscribers only, →OCLC, page 453:
  Ursula could not believe the air in her nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense murderous coldness.
- 1964, C. S. Lewis, chapter 5, in The Discarded Image‎^[2], Cambridge University Press, page 93:
  The question at once arises whether medieval thinkers really believed that what we now call inanimate objects were sentient and purposive.
Pertaining to or demonstrating purpose. [from 19th c.]
- 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 78:
  The world was generally agreed to be a purposive one, responsive to the wishes of its Creator […].
Possessed of a firm purpose. [from 20th c.]
Synonyms: determined, resolute
- 1993, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy‎^[3], Boston: Little, Brown, Part One, 1.15, p. 45:
  Whenever she opened a scientific book and saw whole paragraphs of incomprehensible words and symbols, she felt a sense of wonder at the great territories of learning that lay beyond her—the sum of so many noble and purposive attempts to make objective sense of the world.
(grammar) Of a clause or conjunction: expressing purpose. [from 20th c.]
- 2004, Olga Fischer et al., chapter 7, in The Syntax of Early English, Cambridge University Press, page 212:
  Many scholars suggest that […] the increase in the use of the to-infinitive in Middle English took place at the expense of the bare infinitive (i.e. an infinitive without the marker to). […] due to the loss of verbal inflections, it became difficult to distinguish the infinitival form from other verbal forms. As a result […] to began to function as a mere marker of the infinitive, losing its original ‘purposive’ sense […]

Usage notes

Objects: behavior, action, interpretation, sample, etc.

Derived terms

Related terms

purposeful

Translations

expressing purpose (grammar)

Czech: účelový (cs) m
Slovak: účelový m
Spanish: intencional (es)

Noun

purposive (uncountable)

(grammar) A mood indicating a purpose of the course of activity expressed by the verb.
- 2003, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, “16 - Mood and modality”, in A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia‎^[4], Cambridge University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 393:
  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’.