PURPOSELESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does purposeless mean? 

• PURPOSELESS (adjective)
  The adjective PURPOSELESS has 2 senses:

1. not evidencing any purpose or goal

2. serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being

  Familiarity information: PURPOSELESS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PURPOSELESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not evidencing any purpose or goal

Similar:

adrift; afloat; aimless; directionless; planless; rudderless; undirected (aimlessly drifting)

desultory (marked by lack of definite plan or regularity or purpose; jumping from one thing to another)

Also:

meaningless; nonmeaningful (having no meaning or direction or purpose)

Antonym:

purposeful (serving as or indicating the existence of a purpose or goal)

Derivation:

purposelessness (the quality of lacking any definite purpose)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being

Synonyms:

otiose; pointless; purposeless; senseless; superfluous; wasted

Context example:

senseless violence

Similar:

worthless (lacking in usefulness or value)

Derivation:

purposelessness (the quality of lacking any definite purpose)

 Context examples 

The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Include movements that are choreic (rapid, objectively purposeless, irregular, spontaneous) or athetoid (slow, irregular, complex, serpentine).

(AIMS - Upper Extremities, NCI Thesaurus)

“Perhaps,” observed Traddles, “it was mere purposeless impertinence?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

To complete his strange appearance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless sea-talk.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Uncontrolled and purposeless movements.

(Involuntary Movements, NCI Thesaurus)

This St. John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him—I could not resist him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A subtype of cerebral palsy characterized by involuntary, purposeless writhing movements which affect the hands, feet, arms, and legs; the face and tongue may be affected as well, leading to involuntary grimacing, drooling, dysarthria and difficulty eating.

(Athetoid Cerebral Palsy, NCI Thesaurus)

Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to the side of the bed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Now this is not purposeless.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)