intension

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin intēnsiō (“a stretching, straining; exertion, effort”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a noun of action from intendō (“to stretch out, strain”),^[2][4][5] through its past participle intēnsus,^[7][3] formed from in- (“toward”) and tendō (“to stretch”),^[4] from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[4] Intention is its doublet: Klein calls the Latin noun a collateral form of intentiō,^[6] and the OED and the Shorter Oxford call the English pair doublets.^[2][5] According to Etymonline, intension keeps the verb's literal sense of stretching and intention the figurative one.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of stretching; tension or straining: in 1603, in Philemon Holland's translation of Plutarch.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has the same year for this sense,^[7] and Etymonline has about 1600.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense was soon joined by measures of force: a degree of some quality from 1604 and an increase in degree from 1610.^[2] Johnson (1755) defines it as forcing or straining and sets it against remission, with Bacon on the rise and fall of sounds with the intension or remission of the wind.^[8] For the sense of increase, the OED compares the scholastic Latin pairing with remissio.^[2] The degree sense was often set against extension in the sense of width of range, as in a remark in the Nineteenth Century that farming on virgin soils is extension and on old land intension.^[2][5] From before 1619 it also meant strenuous exertion of the mind or will.^[2] The logical sense, the content of a concept, which Collins and the Oxford Dictionary of English list first, is recorded in William Hamilton's lectures,^[9][10][2] and the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford date it to the mid 19th century.^[10][5] Collins and the Oxford Dictionary of English now treat the other senses as rare or archaic.^[9][10]

Timeline

• 1603 – the action of stretching; straining.^[2][7]
• 1604 – degree, especially a notable degree, of some quality.^[2]
• 1610 – an increase in degree or force, opposed to remission.^[2]
• before 1619 – strenuous exertion of the mind or will; intentness.^[2]
• 1836 – in logic, the sum of the attributes contained in a concept (Hamilton's lectures, 1836–60).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (logic) The internal content of a concept: the set of properties that a term implies, contrasted with its extension: The intension of "square" includes having four equal sides.^{[9][7][10][2]}
2. (rare) Intensity; a degree, especially a marked one, of a quality.^[9][7][2]
3. (rare) Intensification; an increase in power or degree.^[9][7][2]
4. (archaic) Strong effort of the mind; determination, intentness.^[10][7][2]
5. (archaic) An act of straining or stretching; tension.^[7][2][5]

Word family

• intensional
• intensionality
• intensionally

Related words

• intention
• intend
• intense
• tension
• extension

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c d e Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press