Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having an intent or purpose; intent; attentive.
  • Of or pertaining to attention.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Attentive; intent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having an intent or purpose; attentive.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English ententif, from Old French, from Late Latin intentivus ("intensive"), from Latin intendō ("I intend, I attend").

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Examples

  • Os ventris frigescit, cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver, causeth crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations, [2682] our souls for want of spirits cannot attend exactly to so many intentive operations, being exhaust, and overswayed by passion, she cannot consider the reasons which may dissuade her from such affections.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • To eat of a baked apple some advice, or of a preserved quince, cuminseed prepared with meat instead of salt, to keep down fumes: not to study or to be intentive after meals.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • It was brave and ardent, like a young eaglet, "with eyes intentive to bedare the sun;" but it had its traditions to lay down, its experience to buy, and large sections of its military lesson still to learn.

    Fields of Victory Humphry Ward 1885

  • Wherfore the enemies beyng not intentive on the same parte to looke to him, he made his armie to passe over the same flame, causing every man to holde his Target before his face for to defend them from the fire, and smoke.

    Machiavelli, Volume I Niccol�� Machiavelli 1498

  • For he stands intentive to give a law to the wandering eyes, the which his possessor cannot give.

    The Most Pleasant and Delectable Questions of Love 1340

  • Further, if maids love, they know not what they desire, and therefor they do not follow with an intentive mind the steps of the lover as do the widows, in whom now the antique fire takes force and makes them to desire that which through long depriving they had forgotten.

    The Most Pleasant and Delectable Questions of Love 1340

  • "was so intentive to Realities that he little regarded shows," and in his time these came utterly to be neglected.

    For Whom Shakespeare Wrote Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • "was so intentive to Realities that he little regarded shows," and in his time these came utterly to be neglected.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • "was so intentive to Realities that he little regarded shows," and in his time these came utterly to be neglected.

    Complete Essays Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • And some have us’d the leaves instead of cloves, imparting its relish in sauce, especially of fish; and the very dry sticks of the tree, strew’d over with a little powder or dust of sulphur, and vehemently rub’d against one another, will immediately take fire; as will likewise the wood of an old ivy; nay, without any intentive addition, by friction only.

    Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees John Evelyn 1663

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