Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 September 5

= September 5 =

Purposively vs. purposefully
Is there any nuance of difference between the words "purposive/ly" and "purposeful/ly"?

I ask because I came across the word "purposively" for the first time in my life while reading Walter Tevis's The Queen's Gambit this week. He used it at least 3 times. Wiktionary gives virtually identical meanings to it and the word I'm more familiar with, "purposefully".

Thanks. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:11, 5 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't have access to oed.com right now and therefore can't be sure of minor uses of "purposeful(ly)", but it's clear to me from COCA that "purposive(ly)" is used in ways that would seem odd if "purposeful(ly)" were used in its place. This is perhaps clearest in COCA if you look up "purposiveness", of course clicking to see the extended context ("context+") of any token that seems interesting. -- Hoary (talk) 07:20, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
 * OED says (some quotations omitted for length): 70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:16, 5 September 2019 (UTC)


 * ''a1854  E. Grant Mem. Highland Lady (1988) I. v. 95   We were purposefully taken to inspect them.
 * ''1960  W. Miller Canticle for Leibowitz (1961) i. 1   Only..a thing with addled wits would hike purposefully down the trail at noon this way.
 * 2003  Vanity Fair (N.Y.) May 217/3   People..sprinted purposefully through Soho while talking on their mo-byles.


 * 1. Adapted to a purpose or end; serving or directed toward some purpose in the constitution of things, esp. in the course of natural evolution.
 * 2. a. Of an action: performed with conscious purpose or intention. Also (of an intelligence, etc.): †acting with seemingly conscious purpose or intention (obsolete).
 * b. Psychology. Relating to conscious or unconscious purpose as reflected in human and animal behaviour or mental activity.
 * 3. a. Of or relating to purpose.
 * b. Grammar. Of a clause, phrase, or conjunction: expressing aim or purpose.
 * 4. Characterized by firm purpose and resolution.
 * Quotations for purposively:
 * ''1878  Mind 3 268   The first living matter must have been able to take in nourishment, to grow, to propagate, and to act purposively in relation to its environment.
 * ''1939  P. H. Gordon New Archery ii. viii. 89   Never varying except purposively, to correct a mistake.
 * 1997  F. Hearn Moral Order & Social Disorder vi. 152   The purposively constructed organizations that make possible and drive the modern world.


 * 1. On purpose, by design; intentionally, deliberately.
 * ''1495  Act 11 Hen. VII c. 17   It is ordyned..that no man take any Eyre[r], Gossehauke [etc.] nor purposly drive them oute of their covertes.
 * ''1776  E. Gibbon Decline & Fall I. xvi. 582   I have purposely refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of the Christian martyrs.
 * ''1839  C. Dickens Nicholas Nickleby xxxviii. 368   She wouldn't purposely have kept them waiting on any account whatever.
 * 2005  Time Out N.Y. 8 Sept. 71/1   A tall, thin, stylish executive chef who purposely avoids the limelight.
 * 2. With the particular purpose specified; expressly for something or to do something.
 * ''c1520  in Terens in Eng. Prol. sig. A.iiv   Tyll that one Cryto from andro dyd repayre To the cyte of athenys purposely To clayme chrysys goodys as her neyt heyre.
 * ''a1616  W. Shakespeare Titus Andronicus (1623) iii. ii. 73   As if it were the Moore, Come hither purposely to poyson me.
 * ''1839  C. Dickens Nicholas Nickleby lxiv. 619   He heard at last that his young friend had come down purposely to communicate his good fortune.
 * ''2002  Arkansas Democrat-Gaz. (Nexis) 26 June e1   Some families have a dog purposely for the animal to bark and scare off intruders.
 * †3. To good purpose; effectively. Obsolete.


 * The Cambridge online dictionary has definitions and examples which make the difference clear, I think. HenryFlower 10:00, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I rather suspect my quoted author is using the wrong word.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  12:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC)