intentional

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin intentiōnālis,^[2][3][4] a word used by Herveus Natalis about 1300,^[2] from Latin intentiō (“a stretching out, effort, attention; purpose”),^[5][3][2] from intendō (“to direct one's attention”),^[6][7] with the suffix -ālis.^[3] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English take it from French intentionnel or the Latin word,^[8][7] and the OED compares the French adjective, which Palsgrave recorded in 1530.^[2] Etymonline and Dictionary.com treat it instead as intention with the suffix -al.^[5][9] Johnson (1755) derived it from the French word.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or relating to intention; existing only in intention, not in fact: 1530, in Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

In scholastic philosophy from 1624, the word described what belongs to the operations of the mind, existing in or for the mind.^[2][8] The everyday sense "done on purpose, deliberate" is recorded before 1676, in Hale,^[2] about 1677 according to Merriam-Webster;^[3] the Shorter Oxford dates it to the early 18th century.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "designed; done by design".^[10] From 1902 the word rendered the German intentional of Brentano (1874) in phenomenology, for the directedness of consciousness towards an object.^[2][8] In literary criticism the intentional fallacy, the error of judging a work by its author's intended meaning, is recorded from 1946.^[5][2][8]

Timeline

• 1530 – of or relating to intention; existing only in intention.^[2]
• 1624 – scholastic philosophy, belonging to the operations of the mind.^[2]
• before 1676 – done on purpose, intended.^[2]
• 1878 – Hebrew grammar, of a verb form expressing intention.^[2]
• 1902 – phenomenology, characterized by intentionality.^[2]
• 1946 – intentional fallacy.^[5]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Done on purpose; deliberate: an intentional foul.
2. Of or relating to intention or purpose.
3. (philosophy) Relating to the mind's capacity to refer to or be directed at objects; existing only as the object of a mental act.

Word family

• intentionality
• intentionally
• intentional community

Related words

• intend
• intent
• intention
• intensional

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.