different between purposive vs dextrous

English

Etymology

From purpose +? -ive. Compare purpositive.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p??p?s?v/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p?p?s?v/

Adjective

purposive (comparative more purposive, superlative most purposive)

1. Serving a particular purpose; adapted to a given purpose, especially through natural evolution. [from 19th c.]
   • 1918, Algernon Blackwood, The Garden of Survival, London: Macmillan, Chapter 9, p. 142,^[1]

     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.

2. Done or performed with a conscious purpose or intent. [from 19th c.]

   Synonyms: deliberate, intentional, purposeful

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, London: Secker & Warburg, “Appendix: The Principles of Newspeak,”^[2]

     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 2003, p. 191:

     Other ecclesiastics [...] were similarly accepting of a space for purposive and beneficent human action and betterment in a disenchanted world.

3. (psychology) Pertaining to purpose, as reflected in behaviour or mental activity. [from 19th c.]
   • 1920, D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, London: Martin Secker, 1921, Chapter 29, p. 430,^[3]

     Ursula could not believe the air in her nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense murderous coldness.

   • 1964, C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image, Cambridge University Press, Chapter 5, p. 93,^[4]

     The question at once arises whether medieval thinkers really believed that what we now call inanimate objects were sentient and purposive.

4. Pertaining to or demonstrating purpose. [from 19th c.]
   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 78:

     The world was generally agreed to be a purposive one, responsive to the wishes of its Creator […].

5. Possessed of a firm purpose. [from 20th c.]

   Synonyms: determined, resolute

   • 1993, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy, Boston: Little, Brown, Part One, 1.15, p. 45,^[5]

     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.

6. (grammar) Of a clause or conjunction: expressing purpose. [from 20th c.]
   • 2004, Olga Fischer et al., The Syntax of Early English, Cambridge University Press, Chapter 7, p. 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

• purposively
• purposiveness
• purposivism
• purposivist
• purposivity

Related terms

• purposeful

Translations

English

Etymology

See dexterous.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?kst??s

Adjective

dextrous (comparative more dextrous, superlative most dextrous)

1. (chiefly Britain) Alternative spelling of dexterous.
   • 1754, Sarah Fielding, Jane Collier, The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable, Volume 1, page 189,

     The man, who with his right hand (or indeed with either, hand that by habit is the mo?t dextrous) endeavours to help and a??i?t another, exerts his whole ?trength, and is generally enabled to compa?s his friendly de?ign; or if a blow is nece??ary to be given, the dextrous hand hits the desired mark, and gives ju?t the force de?igned; whereas a blow given through pa??ion, with the aukwardne?s of a weak-handed ?troke, may beat out an eye, flatten a no?e, or indeed aiming at an enemy may ?ometimes hit a friend.

   • 1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 5, page 471,

     Yet the ?ubjects of the Byzantine empire were ?till the mo?t dextrous and diligent of nations;

   • 1979, Donald E. Worcester, The Apaches: Eagles of the Southwest, University of Oklahoma Press, page 53,

     " […] She was renowned as one of the most dextrous horse thieves and horse breakers in the tribe, and seldom permitted an expedition to go on a raid without her presence. The translation of her Apache title was ‘Dextrous Horse Thief’."

   • 1992, Richard A. Gabriel, The Culture of War: Invention and Early Development, Greenwood Publishing Group, page 1,

     Its fingers are longer, more flexible, and more dextrous than those of monkeys and can be moved individually.