intention

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A course of action that one intends to follow.
2. n. An aim that guides action; an objective.
3. n. Purpose with respect to marriage: honorable intentions.
4. n. Medicine The process by which or the manner in which a wound heals.
5. n. Archaic Import; meaning.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Direction of the mind; attention; hence, uncommon exertion of the intellectual faculties; closeness of application; fixedness of attention; earnestness.
2. n. The act of intending or purposing.
3. n. That which is intended, purposed, or meant; that for which a thing is made, designed, or done; intent; purpose; aim; meaning; desire: often in the plural, especially (in colloquial use) with regard to marriage.
4. n. A straining or putting forth of action; exertion; intension.
5. n. In surgery, and figuratively in other uses, natural effort or exertion; course of operation; process: as, the wound healed by first or by second intention. See below.
6. n. A mental effort or exertion; notion; conception; opinion.
7. n. Understanding; attention; consideration.
8. n. In law, intent; the fixing of the mind upon the act and thinking of it as of one which will be performed when the time comes. Stephen; Harris. It depends on a joint exercise of the will and the understanding.
9. n. In scholastic logic, a general concept of the mind. [This use of the word (Latin intentio), first found in a translation from Avicenna, was common throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Aquinas says that the intelligible species or first apprehension is the beginning, while the intention is the end of the process of thought.]
10. n. In Roman Catholic theology, in reference to the administration of the sacraments, the actual will, on the part of the one administrating, to perform seriously the rites prescribed by the church, and to do nothing to show contrary intention.

Wiktionary

1. n. A course of action that a person intends to follow.
2. n. The goal or purpose behind a specific action or set of actions
3. n. obsolete Tension; straining, stretching.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A stretching or bending of the mind toward an object; closeness of application; fixedness of attention; earnestness.
2. n. A determination to act in a certain way or to do a certain thing; purpose; design.
3. n. The object toward which the thoughts are directed; end; aim.
4. n. obsolete The state of being strained. See Intension.
5. n. (Logic) Any mental apprehension of an object.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an act of intending; a volition that you intend to carry out
2. n. (usually plural) the goal with respect to a marriage proposal
3. n. an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions