teleological
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of teleological
Explanation
Teleological means starting from the end and reasoning back, explaining things based on their end purpose. A teleological statement you've probably heard before is "everything happens for a reason." Teleological comes from the Greek roots telos "end" or "purpose" and -ology "study of." So teleology and teleological arguments try to explain the result (for example, the complexity and seeming order of the universe) by postulating a purpose. If you take a teleological view of humanity, you think human life has purpose and is moving toward some goal.
Vocabulary lists containing teleological
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Politics are merely means; the bigger questions are teleological, and souls are central.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 8, 2026
Instead, Harris’s seamless, all-explanatory narrative feels increasingly and weirdly teleological, like a cult belief system.
From New York Times • Feb. 14, 2023
The cosmological and teleological evidence as examined above was deemed inconclusive.
From Textbooks • Jun. 15, 2022
We can't have a teleological view of the future.
From Salon • Oct. 8, 2019
Aristotle thus does not think of the natural movement of the elements as movement through space; he sees it in teleological terms as the realization of potential.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
