Word.ws English Dictionary

purposively

purposively adverb: in a purposive manner.

Adverb

purposively (comparative more purposively, superlative most purposively)

  1. In a purposive manner.
    • When the vows are purposively made, Why is there a curse of mistrade?2003, Chaka S. Thomas, In the Midst of Love and Desires, page 41
    • Howard [...] walked purposively to the front door.2005, Zadie Smith, On Beauty, Penguin Books (2006), page 206

Forms of purposively

comparativemore purposively
superlativemost purposively

Origin of purposively

From purposive + -ly.

Questions about purposively

What does purposively mean?
Purposively means in a purposive manner.
What part of speech is purposively?
Purposively is an adverb.

Words near purposively in the dictionary

  1. purpositivenesses
  2. purpositivities
  3. purpositivity
  4. purposive
  5. purposive approach
  6. purposively
  7. purposiveness
  8. purposivenesses
  9. purposivism
  10. purposivist
  11. purposivistic

Source and license

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