different between purpose vs unpurposed

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p?p?s/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p??p?s/
• Rhymes: -??(?)p?s

Etymology 1

From Middle English purpos, from Old French purposer (“to propose”), from Latin pr? (“forth”) + pono, hence Latin propono, proponere, with conjugation altered based on poser.

Noun

purpose (countable and uncountable, plural purposes)

1. An objective to be reached; a target; an aim; a goal.
2. A result that is desired; an intention.
3. The act of intending to do something; resolution; determination.
   • 2013, Phil McNulty, "[2]", BBC Sport, 1 September 2013:

     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.
4. The subject of discourse; the point at issue.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)

5. The reason for which something is done, or the reason it is done in a particular way.

6. (obsolete) Instance; example.

Synonyms

• (target): aim, goal, object, target; See also Thesaurus:goal
• (intention): aim, plan, intention; See also Thesaurus:intention
• (determination): determination, intention, resolution
• (subject of discourse): matter, subject, topic
• (reason for doing something): reason

Hyponyms

• common purpose
• metapurpose

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English purposen, from Old French purposer (“to propose”).

Verb

purpose (third-person singular simple present purposes, present participle purposing, simple past and past participle purposed)

1. (transitive) To have set as one's purpose; resolve to accomplish; intend; plan.
2. (transitive, passive) To design for some purpose. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To discourse.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

Derived terms

• purposed
• purposer
• purposive
• on purpose

Synonyms

• (have set as one's purpose): aim, intend, mean, plan, set out
• (designed for some purpose): intended

Translations

References

• “purpose” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “purpose”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ?ISBN
• "purpose" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.

English

Etymology

un- +? purposed

Adjective

unpurposed (comparative more unpurposed, superlative most unpurposed)

1. Without purpose.

   Synonyms: aimless, goalless, purposeless

   • 1645, John Milton, Tetrachordon, London, p. 32,^[1]

     If that Law did well to reduce from liberty to bondage for an ingratitude not the greatest, much more became it the Law of God to enact the restorement of a free born man from an unpurpos’d, and unworthy bondage to a rightfull liberty for the most unnatural fraud and ingratitude that can be committed against him.

   • 1917, Sinclair Lewis, The Job, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., Part I, Chapter 5, §3, p. 60,^[2]

     He was distinguished from his fellows by the fact that each year he grew more aware that he hadn’t even a dim candle of talent; that he was ill-planned and unpurposed; that he would have to settle down to the ordinary gray limbo of jobs and offices […]

   • 1957, Muriel Spark, The Comforters, London: Macmillan, Chapter 7,

     ‘Your questions about Mrs Jepp, I can’t possibly answer them, ‘said Mervyn, looking at his watch but unpurposed, settling into his chair […]

2. Not deliberate.

   Synonyms: inadvertent, undesigned, unintended, unintentional; see also Thesaurus:unintentional

   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV, Scene 14,^[3]

     When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then

     To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once;

     Or thy precedent services are all

     But accidents unpurposed.

   • 1640, William Whately, Prototypes, London: Edward Langham, The Thirteenth Example, pp. 199-200,^[4]

     […] the Lord will surely accept him and forgive his unpurposed offences and sinnes of meere weakenesse and frailty.

   • 1893, George Gissing, The Odd Women, London: Lawrence & Bullen, Volume I, Chapter 7, p. 188,^[5]

     It was written in very small characters—perhaps an unpurposed indication of the misgivings with which she allowed herself to pen the words.

   • 1948, Gilbert Murray (translator), Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus, London: George Allen & Unwin, p. 33,^[6]

     O pitying strangers, since ye will not hear

     My old blind father, for some tales ye have heard

     Of his unpurposed sin, Oh, still give ear

     To a lost maiden, and accept the word

     I speak for his sake […]