purpose

pur|pose1 [ `pɜrpəs ] noun ***

1. ) count the goal that someone wants to achieve, or that something is intended to achieve:

I use my boat mainly for leisure purposes.

purpose of: The purpose of this dictionary is to help students of English.

the purpose of doing something: The president's trip will have the purpose of negotiating a peace deal.

for the purpose of doing something: He went there for the purpose of making business contacts.

someone's purpose in doing something: Her sole purpose in being here was to kill some time.

suit someone's purpose: You must decide which method suits your purpose best.

serve a purpose (=achieve a goal): Another meeting would serve absolutely no purpose.

defeat the purpose of something (=make it impossible to achieve the goal that you want to achieve): Exercising for too long defeats the purpose of doing exercise in the first place.

2. ) uncount a goal or meaning in your life because there is something you want to achieve:

Now his life lacks purpose.

a sense of purpose: The course gave her a new sense of purpose.

3. ) for no reason/for no good reason:

It would upset them both to no purpose.

for all practical purposes or to all intents and purposes

used for saying that although something is not completely true or correct, its effect is the same as if it were:

For all practical purposes there is no difference between them.

To all intents and purposes she is the boss.

for the purpose(s) of something

when considering one particular thing:

For the purposes of this study, we ignored the responses of those with fewer than three children.

on purpose

deliberately:

Did you do that on purpose?

They think the fire was started on purpose.

to little/no purpose FORMAL

unsuccessfully, or with bad results:

She called after them to no purpose.

=> ALL-PURPOSE, CROSS PURPOSES

purpose

pur|pose 2 [ `pɜrpəs ] verb transitive OLD-FASHIONED

to intend to do something