purposiveadj.

1854 R. Owen Principal Forms Skeleton & Teeth 114 Now this purposive modification of the hæmapophyses of the frontal vertebra, is but a repetition of that which affects the same elements in the abdominal vertebræ.

1879 Cornhill Mag. June 717 Its final outcome will be a purposive structure,—that is to say, a structure specially adapted to its peculiar function.

1894 G. Allen in Westm. Gaz. 8 May 2/1 The stings of nettles are purposive, as stings. They act as protectors.

1923 J. S. Huxley Ess. Biologist i. 41 Apparently purposive structures could arise by means of a non-purposive mechanism.

1977 G. Clark World Prehist. (ed. 3) i. 23 There are no signs that these were shaped to purposive, standard designs.

1903 Daily Chron. 29 July 4/4 They are strong in mind and body, truthful and purposive, excellent leaders of the people of lower races.

1904 Daily News 10 Aug. 6 They have become aware of his practical talent,..his lucidity, integrity, and calmly purposive steadfastness.

1987 Nature 8 Oct. 495/1 One effect of this more purposive approach to the management of science is that lines of research are more likely to be stopped than in the past.

1878 Mind 3 268 The first living matter must have been able to take in nourishment, to grow, to propagate, and to act purposively in relation to its environment.

1939 P. H. Gordon New Archery ii. viii. 89 Never varying except purposively, to correct a mistake.

1997 F. Hearn Moral Order & Social Disorder vi. 152 The purposively constructed organizations that make possible and drive the modern world.

1876 E. R. Lankester tr. E. Haeckel Hist. Creation I. i. 19 [One] must necessarily come to the conclusion that this ‘purposiveness’ no more exists than the much-talked-of ‘beneficence’ of the Creator.

1932 A. H. Gardiner Theory of Speech & Lang. iv. 181 The characteristic feature of the sentence, as opposed to mere unintelligible words, is its purposiveness.

2001 C. Crockett Theol. of Sublime 110 Kantian beauty, which consists in a free play of imagination and understanding in a purposiveness without purpose or a finality without end.

1931 A. Ralston & C. J. Gage Present Day Psychol. xvii. 244 McDougall is the leading exponent of the school of purposivism.

1932 E. C. Tolman Purposive Behavior in Animals & Men xxv. 423 Our psychology is a purposivism; but it is an objective, behavioristic purposivism, not a mentalistic one.

1998 A. L. Blumenthal in G. A. Kimble & M. Wertheimer Portaits of Pioneers in Psychol. III. iii. 32 As early as 1858.., he [sc. Wilhelm Wundt] was arguing that there are phenomena in biology and psychology that require explanations that are different in their fundamental form from the pattern of explanation found in physics and chemistry. These explanations..had to involve notions of purposivism and goal-oriented actions.

1923 Jrnl. Amer. Inst. Criminal Law & Criminol. 14 2 Some criminologists and penologists are really purposivists, although..they insist upon calling themselves determinists.

1932 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 38 152 The author [sc. Woodworth (1931)]..drops a mild plaint that McDougall's instinct—purposivist—hormic philosophy has not been more indulgently received.

1936 J. R. Kantor Objective Psychol. Gram. v. 69 The second group of purposivists carry speech farther away from the individual than the first group. For them, speech is primarily an instrument for achieving social purposes.

1940 R. S. Woodworth Psychol. (ed. 12) xvii. 583 The purposivist school emphasizes the importance of striving and goal-seeking.

1994 M. C. Smith Social Sci. in Crucible ii. 75 The response and number of such purposivist reviewers as Berle and Beard reflected the changing political and ideological environment of the 1930s.