adjective

• Having, serving, or done with a purpose.

  ‘teaching is a purposive activity’

  More example sentences

  • ‘They look for a collective life involving emotional, intellectual and physical inputs in some purposive activity.’
  • ‘Each is defined by one of three aspects of purposive human activity, and this is its ‘horizonal schema’ or ‘pattern’.’
  • ‘In this microscopic view, experience is revealed as having a foundation of ceaseless activity, of short-lived purposive impulses.’
  • ‘Poisoning is no doubt a purposive activity, and reflections on its purpose may show that it has its internal principles.’
  • ‘Only if what we are trying to explain is the purposive activity of a rational agent is it appropriate to look for a personal explanation.’
  • ‘On the other hand, the muscles of our limbs are termed ‘voluntary,’ because we can use them to carry out the purposive determinations of the Will.’
  • ‘The abuse was thus deliberate and purposive, intended to make prisoners psychologically ready for interrogation.’
  • ‘It appears that D will be convicted only where a purposive intent is proved.’
  • ‘It finally rained at night, quiet but intense rain, the sort where you look out and see sheets of water moving across vast tracts of Singapore like a purposive entity.’
  • ‘Belief in God, gods and spirits is what Monod calls animism: the projection into nature of the purposive properties of the human central nervous system.’
  • ‘An aeon of evolutionary pressure has selected for ordered and regular behaviour that leads to positive outcomes, and this can look like purposive behaviour.’
  • ‘This is an inclusive or purposive concept of community which in principle excludes no one, but which cannot be assigned to you.’
  • ‘The Americans pushed for peace, and Garang fell to the task with purposive will.’
  • ‘Lord Denning led the stampede for the door, arguing for a purposive approach.’
  • ‘Revelation is the sensitizing of persons to/to ward the divine activity with the invitation to participate in that purposive world.’
  • ‘This was a purposive sample that included people at various levels of commitment to the church and various lengths of time in attendance.’
  • ‘The Area Committee rejected this submission as being contrary to any purposive interpretation and as contradicted by the clear wording of the regulation.’
  • ‘I have again attempted to construe the statute in a purposive manner and with my understanding of the intent of the Act in mind.’
  • ‘It was founded on a broad purposive interpretation giving effect to the intention of Parliament.’
  • ‘Nevertheless, it does illustrate a reluctance on the part of the courts to acquiesce in the loss of a right of appeal which would have been the result of a stricter, less purposive construction.’

  Synonyms

  determined, purposeful, purposive, resolved, decided, adamant, single-minded, firm, unswerving, unwavering, undaunted, fixed, set, intent, insistent