purposiveness
/ˈpɜː(ɹ)pəsɪvnəs/
purposiveness noun: the state or condition of being purposive.
Noun
purposiveness (usually uncountable, plural purposivenesses)
- The state or condition of being purposive.
- These reflex actions of the Spinal Cord have much more regularity and apparent purposiveness in the lower Vertebrata, approaching in this respect to the reflex actionso fhte ganglionic column of Articulata, than they have in Man.1853, William Benjamin Carpenter, Principles of Human Physiology, Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 5th American and 4th Enlarged London Edition, Chapter 14, p. 675
- The majestic spectacle of this blind, inarticulate purposiveness thrusting its way upward and ever upward in an endless unity of differentiated achievements towards an ever-increasing complexity of organisation, towards spontaneity and spirituality, swept away all my old conception of a duty to Man...1943, C. S. Lewis, chapter 7, in Perelandra, London: The Bodley Head, page 102
- Synonyms:
- purposivity
Synonyms of purposiveness
Forms of purposiveness
| plural | purposivenesses |
|---|
Origin of purposiveness
From purposive + -ness.
Questions about purposiveness
- What does purposiveness mean?
- Purposiveness means the state or condition of being purposive.
- What part of speech is purposiveness?
- Purposiveness is a noun.
- How do you pronounce purposiveness?
- Purposiveness is pronounced /ˈpɜː(ɹ)pəsɪvnəs/.
- What is the plural of purposiveness?
- The plural of purposiveness is purposivenesses.
Words near purposiveness in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: purposiveness (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: “purposiveness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/purposiveness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.