purpose

«purpose» in Mova's school dictionary: the reason it exists or the job it is meant to do — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a purpose, purposes); phrase (on purpose)

meaning for a pupil

1) The purpose of something is the reason it exists or the job it is meant to do. tree →

2) Your purpose is what you are trying to achieve. tree →

3) If you do something on purpose, you mean to do it; it is not an accident. tree →

4) To purpose something means to intend or plan to do it. tree →

sense in the lessons

In school and science you ask «What is the purpose of the roots?» (to take in water and hold the plant). In writing lessons the «purpose» of a text is why it was written: to inform, persuade or entertain. In everyday life and fairness «on purpose» matters a lot: hurting someone on purpose is much worse than by accident, and saying «It wasn't on purpose» is how people explain mistakes. In stories a hero often finds a purpose in life.

examples

• What is the purpose of a seatbelt? tree →
• The purpose of this experiment is to find out which material floats. tree →
• He tripped me on purpose! tree →
• I didn't break it on purpose, I'm sorry. tree →
• The purpose of a persuasive letter is to change someone's mind. tree →
• Each tool in the box has its own purpose. tree →
• Our club's purpose is to keep the beach clean. tree →
• She left the door open on purpose so the cat could come in. tree →
• Bishop Olaf of Borglum, what dost thou purpose? tree →

note

Countable noun. «On purpose» = deliberately; its opposite is «by accident» or «by mistake». Say «for the purpose of», not «for purpose». «Purposeful» means having a clear aim. Pronounced PUR-pus, not «pur-pose» like «pose».

In the corpora

• Not everything you see is true: some stories and videos are made up or edited on purpose to fool people.
• Deliberate practice means working on purpose on the parts you cannot do yet, slowly and carefully.
• Vibrato is a controlled wobble in the voice that singers use on purpose, different from a nervous shake.
• Cartoons break the rules of physics on purpose to be funny, like running off a cliff and falling only after looking down.
• Lemmings do not jump off cliffs on purpose; the famous 1958 film scene was staged by bringing lemmings in and pushing them off.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «purpose» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.