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Is there any nuance of difference between the words "purposive/ly" and "purposeful/ly"?
I ask because I came across the word "purposively" for the first time in my life while reading Walter Tevis's The Queen's Gambit this week. He used it at least 3 times. Wiktionary gives virtually identical meanings to it and the word I'm more familiar with, "purposefully".
I don't have access to oed.com right now and therefore can't be sure of minor uses of "purposeful(ly)", but it's clear to me from COCA that "purposive(ly)" is used in ways that would seem odd if "purposeful(ly)" were used in its place. This is perhaps clearest in COCA if you look up "purposiveness", of course clicking to see the extended context ("context+") of any token that seems interesting. -- Hoary (talk) 07:20, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
a1854 E. Grant Mem. Highland Lady (1988) I. v. 95 We were purposefully taken to inspect them.
1960 W. Miller Canticle for Leibowitz (1961) i. 1 Only..a thing with addled wits would hike purposefully down the trail at noon this way.
2003 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) May 217/3 People..sprinted purposefully through Soho while talking on their mo-byles.
purposive, adj. (four definitions) Derivitive: purposively adv. in a purposive manner; purposely.
1. Adapted to a purpose or end; serving or directed toward some purpose in the constitution of things, esp. in the course of natural evolution.
2. a. Of an action: performed with conscious purpose or intention. Also (of an intelligence, etc.): †acting with seemingly conscious purpose or intention (obsolete).
b. Psychology. Relating to conscious or unconscious purpose as reflected in human and animal behaviour or mental activity.
3. a. Of or relating to purpose.
b. Grammar. Of a clause, phrase, or conjunction: expressing aim or purpose.
4. Characterized by firm purpose and resolution.
Quotations for purposively:
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.
purposely, adv. (three definitions)
1. On purpose, by design; intentionally, deliberately.
1495 Act 11 Hen. VII c. 17 It is ordyned..that no man take any Eyre[r], Gossehauke [etc.] nor purposly drive them oute of their covertes.
1776 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall I. xvi. 582 I have purposely refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of the Christian martyrs.
1839 C. Dickens Nicholas Nickleby xxxviii. 368 She wouldn't purposely have kept them waiting on any account whatever.
2005 Time Out N.Y. 8 Sept. 71/1 A tall, thin, stylish executive chef who purposely avoids the limelight.
2. With the particular purpose specified; expressly for something or to do something.
c1520 in Terens in Eng. Prol. sig. A.iiv Tyll that one Cryto from andro dyd repayre To the cyte of athenys purposely To clayme chrysys goodys as her neyt heyre.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Titus Andronicus (1623) iii. ii. 73 As if it were the Moore, Come hither purposely to poyson me.
1839 C. Dickens Nicholas Nickleby lxiv. 619 He heard at last that his young friend had come down purposely to communicate his good fortune.
2002 Arkansas Democrat-Gaz. (Nexis) 26 June e1 Some families have a dog purposely for the animal to bark and scare off intruders.
Resolved