adjective
-
relating to, having, or indicating conscious intention
-
serving a purpose; useful
Other Word Forms
- nonpurposive adjective
- nonpurposively adverb
- nonpurposiveness noun
- prepurposive adjective
- purposively adverb
- purposiveness noun
- semipurposive adjective
- semipurposively adverb
- semipurposiveness noun
- unpurposive adjective
Etymology
Origin of purposive
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.
His subsequent efforts were as varied, if more grimly purposive, as the death-obsessed male protagonist’s stagings in “Harold and Maude,” or Bill Murray as Phil Connors, trying to escape the time loop in “Groundhog Day.”
From New York Times • Mar. 26, 2023
Policy is also purposive, or intended to do something; that is, policymaking is not random.
From Textbooks • Jul. 28, 2021
They were grim, purposive pleas about “making a plan” that might involve multiple brown bag meals and waiting in line for hours.
From Slate • Aug. 21, 2020
If there is any hope for a better world, it lies in the daily effort to expand the circle of those we believe should be treated as full, purposive and dignified human beings.
From Washington Post • Aug. 1, 2019
For them, as we saw in Chapter 9, the argument from design depended on envisaging the universe as manufactured, rather than on showing nature itself to be purposive.
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.
