Word.ws English Dictionary

atelic

atelic adjective: presenting an action or event’s significance as being the process or experience instead of the end accomplishment or goal.

Adjective

atelic (not comparable)

  1. Presenting an action or event’s significance as being the process or experience instead of the end accomplishment or goal.
  2. Not tending nor directed toward a goal or specific end.
  3. That expresses lacking an end, resolution, or finite purpose.
  4. That expresses the imperfective aspect.

Antonyms of atelic

Origin of atelic

From a- + telic.

Words formed from atelic

Questions about atelic

What does atelic mean?
Atelic means presenting an action or event’s significance as being the process or experience instead of the end accomplishment or goal.
What part of speech is atelic?
Atelic is an adjective.

Words near atelic in the dictionary

  1. ateleopodids
  2. atelestid
  3. atelestids
  4. atelestite
  5. atelia
  6. atelic
  7. atelically
  8. atelid
  9. atelids
  10. atelier
  11. atelierista

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: atelic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “atelic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/atelic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.