different between intention vs nebulously

English

Alternative forms

• entention (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French intention, entention, from Old French entencion, from Latin intentio, intentionem. Compare intent.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?t?n??n/
• Hyphenation: in?ten?tion
• Rhymes: -?n??n
• Homophone: intension

Noun

intention (countable and uncountable, plural intentions)

1. The goal or purpose behind a specific action or set of actions.
   • a. 1784, attributed to Samuel Johnson

     Hell is paved with good intentions.

   • “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
2. (obsolete) Tension; straining, stretching.
   • , I.iii.3:

     cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver, causeth crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations […].

3. A stretching or bending of the mind toward an object or a purpose (an intent); closeness of application; fixedness of attention; earnestness.

   • it is attention : when the mind with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on all sides, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitation of other ideas, it is that we call intention or study

4. (obsolete) The object toward which the thoughts are directed; end; aim.
   • 1732, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Nature of Ailments …, Prop. II, p.159:

     In a Word, the most part of chronical Distempers proceed from Laxity of Fibres; in which Case the principal Intention is to restore the Tone of the solid Parts; […].

5. (obsolete) Any mental apprehension of an object.
6. (medicine) The process of the healing of a wound.
   • 2007, Carie Ann Braun, Cindy Miller Anderson, Pathophysiology: Functional Alterations in Human Health, p.49:

     When healing occurs by primary intention, the wound is basically closed with all areas of the wound connecting and healing simultaneously.

Synonyms

• (purpose behind a specific action): See also Thesaurus:intention

Derived terms

• counter-intention
• intentional
• secondary intention
• the road to hell is paved with good intentions
• well-intentioned

Related terms

• intend
• intent
• well-intended

Translations

Verb

intention (third-person singular simple present intentions, present participle intentioning, simple past and past participle intentioned)

1. Intend

Translations

References

• intention at OneLook Dictionary Search
• intention in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Finnish

Noun

intention

1. Genitive singular form of intentio.

French

Etymology

From Middle French entention, from Old French entencion, borrowed from Latin intenti?, intenti?nem. Respelled intention in Middle French to more closely match the Classical Latin form.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.t??.sj??/

Noun

intention f (plural intentions)

1. intention

Derived terms

Further reading

• “intention” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle French

Noun

intention f (plural intentions)

1. Alternative form of entention

English

Etymology

nebulous +? -ly

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /?n?b.j?.l?s.li/

Adverb

nebulously (comparative more nebulously, superlative most nebulously)

1. In a manner like that of a cloud or haze.

   The vapour drifted nebulously into the hall.

2. As if viewed through a cloud or haze.
3. Vaguely, without clear purpose or specific intention.

   He waved his hand nebulously in the direction he intended to go.

Quotations

• 1866 - Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War

  The bladed guns are gleaming—
      Drift in lengthened trim,
  Files on files for hazy miles—
      Nebulously dim.

• 1905 - Jack London, The Game, chapter IV

  And there he stood, all but naked, godlike, in a white blaze of light. She had never conceived of the form of God except as nebulously naked, and the thought-association was startling.

• 1920 - Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, chapter XVI, section 2

  Mysteriously aching, nebulously sad, she slipped away, half-convinced but only half-convinced that it was horrible and unnatural, this postponement of release of mother-affection, this sacrifice to her opinionation and to his cautious desire for prosperity.

• 1928 - H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

  For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where - God in heaven! - the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.

• 1931 - H. P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness, chapter 6

  Archaic covered bridges lingered fearsomely out of the past in pockets of the hills, and the half-abandoned railway track paralleling the river seemed to exhale a nebulously visible air of desolation.

Related terms

• nebulosity
• nebulous
• nebulousness

Translations