unpurposed

English

Etymology

From un- +‎ purposed.

Adjective

unpurposed (comparative more unpurposed, superlative most unpurposed)

1. Without purpose.

   Synonyms: aimless, goalless, purposeless

   • 1645 March 14 (Gregorian calendar), John Milton, Tetrachordon: Expositions upon the Foure Chief Places in Scripture, which Treat of Mariage, or Nullities in Mariage. […], London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 32:

     If that Law did well to reduce from liberty to bondage for an ingratitude not the greatest, much more became it the Law of God to enact the restorement of a free born man from an unpurpos’d, and unworthy bondage to a rightfull liberty for the most unnatural fraud and ingratitude that can be committed against him.

   • 1917, Sinclair Lewis, The Job‎^[1], New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., Part I, Chapter 5, §3, p. 60:

     He was distinguished from his fellows by the fact that each year he grew more aware that he hadn’t even a dim candle of talent; that he was ill-planned and unpurposed; that he would have to settle down to the ordinary gray limbo of jobs and offices […]

   • 1957, Muriel Spark, chapter 7, in The Comforters, London: Macmillan:

     ‘Your questions about Mrs Jepp, I can’t possibly answer them, ‘said Mervyn, looking at his watch but unpurposed, settling into his chair […]

2. Not deliberate.

   Synonyms: inadvertent, undesigned, unintended, unintentional; see also Thesaurus:unintentional

   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene xiv]:

     When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then
     To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once;
     Or thy precedent services are all
     But accidents unpurposed.

   • 1640, William Whately, Prototypes, London: Edward Langham, The Thirteenth Example, pp. 199-200,^[2]

     […] the Lord will surely accept him and forgive his unpurposed offences and sinnes of meere weakenesse and frailty.

   • 1893, George Gissing, chapter 7, in The Odd Women‎^[3], volume I, London: Lawrence & Bullen, page 188:

     It was written in very small characters—perhaps an unpurposed indication of the misgivings with which she allowed herself to pen the words.

   • 1948, Gilbert Murray, transl., Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus‎^[4], London: George Allen & Unwin, page 33:

     O pitying strangers, since ye will not hear
     My old blind father, for some tales ye have heard
     Of his unpurposed sin, Oh, still give ear
     To a lost maiden, and accept the word
     I speak for his sake […]