adj
Meaning 1
Having purpose: having intention or meaning; intentional.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
purposeful
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
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Received-Pronunciation: /ˈpɜː.pəs.fəl/
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Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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General-American: /ˈpɝ.pəs.fəl/
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CMU ARPABET: P ER1 P AH0 S F AH0 L Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
adj
Meaning 2
Having a purpose in mind; resolute; determined, full of determination.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
adjective
Meaning 3
serving as or indicating the existence of a purpose or goal
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: purposeless
adjective satellite
Meaning 4
having meaning through having an aim
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Examples
- led a happy purposeful life
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From purpose + -ful.
Across languages
Translations
28 source translations are retained for this English entry.
- Bulgarian: умишлен (umišlen) — intentional
- Dutch: opzettelijk — intentional
- Hungarian: céltudatos — intentional
- Hungarian: szándékos — intentional
- Māori: whaitake — intentional
- Russian: целенапра́вленный (celenaprávlennyj) — intentional
- Russian: умы́шленный (umýšlennyj) — intentional
- Spanish: propositivo — intentional
- Turkish: kasıtlı — intentional
- Turkish: istemli — intentional
- Turkish: kasti — intentional
- Bulgarian: решителен (rešitelen) — resolute
- Bulgarian: целеустремен (celeustremen) — resolute
- Dutch: vastberaden — resolute
- German: entschlossen — resolute
- German: zielgerichtet — resolute
- Hungarian: eltökélt — resolute
- Hungarian: határozott — resolute
- Hungarian: szilárd — resolute
- Māori: whaitake — resolute
- Russian: целеустремлённый (celeustremljónnyj) — resolute
- Russian: реши́тельный (rešítelʹnyj) — resolute
- Spanish: propositivo — resolute
- Swedish: målmedveten — resolute
- Turkish: amaçlı — resolute
- Turkish: gayeli — resolute
- Turkish: maksatlı — resolute
- Turkish: kasıtlı — resolute
Real reading context