on purpose• Consider in this connection the point I made earlier that comprehension is necessarily incomplete and dependenton purpose.• I spilled my drink on purpose -- I needed an excuse to leave the room.• He wasn't the kind of bloke to do it on purpose.• Will always pronounces my name wrong. Do you think he does it on purpose?• If I throw one up in the zone, it's not on purpose.• The first time you step out, whether by accident or on purpose, a warning is imposed.• Perhaps she had been dropped on to his pathon purpose.• Fire investigators believe the fire was set on purpose.• If it was on purpose, the culmination of some evilconspiracy, well of course it will happen again.• Is he really that dumb or is he acting that way on purpose?• Yeah, we keep it that way on purpose.• Whether on purpose or by mistake, Kimberly was exchanged for the baby who came to be known as Arlena Twigg.
5feeling 想法 [uncountableU]PURPOSE a feeling of determination to achieve things in life 〔达到生活目标的〕决心,毅力
It’s so important to have a sense of purpose that it underlies human happiness.
生活目标很重要,有了它人生才会幸福。
My football career was over and I had no purpose in life.
足球生涯的结束让我觉得生活失去了意义。
He possessed great strength of purpose.
他拥有坚强的意志。
6for all practical purposes (also to all intents and purposes)ALMOST used to say that something is so close to the truth that it can be considered to be the truth 实际上;大体上
The war, to all intents and purposes, was over.
战争实际上已经结束了。
We have a secretary of state for Scotland who is for all practical purposes a Scottish prime minister.
我们有一位苏格兰事务大臣,实际上就是苏格兰的首相。
Examples from the Corpus
for all practical purposes• For all practical purposes, the cleanup of the oilspill is complete.• For all practical purposes, the country is bankrupt.• But, for all practical purposes you can say that a windangle of 60° produces maximumdrift.• Indeed for all practical purposes he owned us.• Computerizedfreelanguageindexing is, for all practical purposes, the same as natural language indexing.• The editdisplayscreen can only be used, for all practical purposes, for cutting and pasting.• Most of the 54 storiesreproduced here, even the previously published ones, were, for all practical purposes, lost.• Yet for all practical purposes, Windows was Macintosh.
7serve its purposeUSEFULif something has served its purpose, it has done what you needed it to do 起到应有的作用
We delete the data once it has served its purpose.
这些数据一旦用过我们就把它删除。
Examples from the Corpus
serve its purpose• The handkerchief, having apparently served its purpose, was forgotten.• I felt that after two and a half years, the therapy had served its purpose.• The midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew has served its purpose of restoring order to the city.• This star system has served its purpose.• If not a particularly eloquent or clevercontribution, I thought it served its purpose.• Yet somehow that spurious report served its purpose in terms of giving labor unions a weapon to wield against business.• It replicates a course of action that has seemingly served its purposes in the past.• Opening the front door, he placed the message on the doorstep, praying that it would serve its purpose.
8defeat the purposeto fail to achieve the result you want 没有达到目的
Anxiety will cause tension, which defeats the purpose of the exercise (=the activity or plan).
忧虑会引发紧张情绪,一紧张就达不到目的了。
Examples from the Corpus
defeat the purpose• They are defeating the purpose of the PeaceCorps and they are unhappy.• This, of course, defeats the purpose for which the medication is being given.• Never remove them and forget to put them back, it defeats the purpose.• This obviously defeated the purpose of bail, which is to assure that the defendant will appear in court.• If they become a chore, they defeat the purpose of helping the child to want to interact with you.• Doesn't this defeat the purpose of producing fruit in the first place?• This anxiety will cause tension which defeats the purpose of the exercise.• This also eliminates the need to scroll to find data, which would defeat the purpose of having a commandcentre.
9to no purposeformalRESULT without any usefulresults 毫无效果
She called after them, but to no purpose.
她在他们身后叫他们,可是一点用也没有。
Examples from the Corpus
to no purpose• The negotiations lasted for days, apparently to no purpose.• Alba was empty enough of men to govern and serve, without throwing them away to no purpose.• The chariot moves back and forth, he wrote, but to no purpose.• She called after them to no purpose.
10.to the purposeold-fashionedUSEFULuseful or helpful 有用的;有益的,有帮助的
Examples from the Corpus
to the purpose• Thus, Ahab is getting closer to the Purpose of his life.• The management company may be dedicatedto the purpose or this activity may be just one of a number of related activities.• The duty only extendsto the purpose for which the visitor was allowed entry.• The nature of the assessment should be gearedto the purpose of the writing.• We arrive at the degree of convergence necessaryto the purpose of interaction and no more.• FatherPeter felt that that embraced all things relating to the purpose of the League.• The application to the widercommunity brings us to the purpose of our gathering in this place dedicated to unity.
sense of purpose• Oh, for a sense of purpose.• When that is taken away, the new retiree may no longer have a sense of purpose.• Raised beds should have a sense of purpose, proportion and design.• If large goals are broken down into small specifiedshort-termtasks, a sense of purpose is created.• The wing, I found, had inadequatefocus and a fuzzysense of purpose.• Starting his own business gave him a new sense of purpose in his life.• The Star was reborn in 1941 with a new format and a renewedsense of purpose.• There are a couple of duds on Double Good Everything but there's also a sharpersense of purpose.
Originpurpose
(1200-1300)Old Frenchpurpos, from purposer“to intend”, from Latinproponere; → PROPOUND