Word.ws English Dictionary

purposelessly

purposelessly adverb: in a purposeless manner; to no end; for no reason.

Adverb

purposelessly (comparative more purposelessly, superlative most purposelessly)

  1. In a purposeless manner; to no end; for no reason.
    • The sparse grey locks he combed were fewer and greyer: and though the accustomed mouth circle was as obdurately set as of old, his head waggled purposelessly: and his hands fumbled stiffly as he folded and replaced his pocket comb.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 216

Forms of purposelessly

comparativemore purposelessly
superlativemost purposelessly

Origin of purposelessly

From purposeless + -ly.

Questions about purposelessly

What does purposelessly mean?
Purposelessly means in a purposeless manner; to no end; for no reason.
What part of speech is purposelessly?
Purposelessly is an adverb.

Words near purposelessly in the dictionary

  1. purposeful
  2. purposeful availment
  3. purposefully
  4. purposefulness
  5. purposeless
  6. purposelessly
  7. purposelessness
  8. purposelike
  9. purposely
  10. purposer
  11. purposers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: purposelessly (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: “purposelessly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/purposelessly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.