Word.ws English Dictionary

on purpose

on purpose prepositional phrase: by design, as opposed to by accident; intentionally; deliberately.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) By design, as opposed to by accident; intentionally; deliberately.
    • That wasn't an accident! You did it on purpose!
  2. (archaic) In order to (do something); with the objective that.
    • Blifil bowed and stammered, and looked like a fool; but Western, without giving him time to form a speech for the purpose, answered, “Well, well, I am to blame, if you will, I always am, certainly; but come, let the girl be fetched back again, or let Mr Blifil go to her.——He’s come up on purpose...1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
    • I send this to the town, on purpose to have it reach you by the earliest post […].1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 260

on purpose meaning in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Gujarati

on purpose in Tamil

நெஞ்சார

on purpose in Telugu

purposely, with intention
కావాలని kāvālani

on purpose in Malayalam

intentionally, deliberately, purposely
പ്രത്യേക ഉദ്ദേശ്യത്തോടെ, പ്രത്യേക ലക്ഷ്യം മുൻനിർത്തി, ദുരുദ്ദേശത്തോടെ, ഗൂഢലക്ഷ്യത്തോടെ, കരുതിക്കൂട്ടി, സോദ്ദേശ്യം

on purpose in Gujarati

purposely, with intention
જાણીજોઈને jāṇījoīne
More languagesFewer languages
on purpose in Arabic
عَمْدًا ʕamdan
on purpose in Persian
عمدا 'amdan, از قصد az qasd, دانسته dâneste

Synonyms of on purpose

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of on purpose

Words formed from on purpose

Questions about on purpose

What does on purpose mean?
On purpose means by design, as opposed to by accident; intentionally; deliberately.
What is on purpose in Tamil?
On purpose in Tamil is நெஞ்சார. See On purpose meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is on purpose?
On purpose is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on purpose in the dictionary

  1. on parade
  2. on pins and needles
  3. on point
  4. on principle
  5. on pump
  6. on purpose
  7. on rails
  8. on rare form
  9. on read
  10. on record
  11. on reflection

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on purpose (page history and authors); on purpose (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); on purpose (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-on purpose.ogg.

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