purposefulness

Meaning

1. 1noununcountableapproving

   The quality of having a clear aim and acting with determination to achieve it.

   Grammar: Uncountable: a sense of purposefulness, not a purposefulness.

   Patterns

   • with purposefulness
   • a sense of purposefulness

   She walked into the meeting with a quiet purposefulness that impressed everyone.

   The team's purposefulness helped them finish the project early.

   Retirement can leave people lacking the purposefulness that work once gave them.

Common combinations

sense of purposefulness

Volunteering gave him a strong sense of purposefulness.

quiet purposefulness

The nurse moved with quiet purposefulness.

lack of purposefulness

The report criticised the lack of purposefulness in the plan.

with purposefulness

They worked with purposefulness through the night.

renewed purposefulness

The coach spoke with renewed purposefulness.

Synonyms and how they differ

determination

Determination stresses refusing to give up, whereas purposefulness stresses having a clear aim.

resolve

Resolve describes firm decision after hesitation, while purposefulness describes steady focus.

sense of direction

Sense of direction is a looser phrase about knowing where one is heading in life.

focus

Focus is about attention, but purposefulness also includes the goal behind it.

Opposites

Word family

purpose noun

the reason for doing something

purposeful adjective

having a clear aim

purposefully adverb

in a determined way with an aim

purposeless adjective

without a clear aim

Commonly confused: purposefulness or purposely?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “purposefulness”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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