intend
Formsintends, intending, intended
- 1To have something in mind as a plan or purpose; to mean to do something.
Reformers intend a complete overhaul of the tax system.
She intends to master the cello before she turns thirty.
UsageMost often intend to + verb (she intends to leave); it can also take a plain object: intend a change.
Similarplan, mean, propose, design, purpose
Note
Most often a verb with to follows, as in intending to go to university, though a plain object also works: people may intend some mischief. The passive is common too: The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) has stories "plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect."
- 2To have a particular person, purpose or use in mind for something, often in the passive with for or as.
The architects intend the new wing for research labs, not lecture halls.
His remark was intended as a joke, but nobody at the table laughed.
UsageMostly in the passive: intended for a person or use, intended as a joke or a warning.
- 3To stretch out so as to extend or distend; to swell or expand.
Note
Here the word is physical, and the meaning is obsolete: to stretch something until it swells or extends. A reader meeting it in an old text should read it as distend, not as purpose. In modern writing, distend and extend do this job, and intend would simply be misunderstood. Its close neighbor is the "make tense" meaning, where the stretching pulls something tight.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Intend has an obsolete physical sense meaning to stretch, extend, or distend. en.wiktionary.org
- Intend also has a related sense meaning to strain or make tense. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 4To intensify or strengthen something.
Note
This meaning is obsolete, and it is easiest to spot by its partner word. In older prose, intended is paired with remitted, its opposite. Folly, for example, is "for the most part intended or remitted in particular men," which means strengthened in some people and slackened in others. Read it as intensified. The etymology points to intensive as a related word.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The sense ‘to intensify or strengthen’ is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
- Older prose pairs intended with remitted. gutenberg.org
- Remitted expresses the opposite sense: slackened or relaxed. en.wiktionary.org
- The quoted wording about folly occurs in older prose, with the stated interpretation supported by its context. gutenberg.org
- Intensive is etymologically related to intend. en.wiktionary.org
- 5To give one's attention to something, or to look after, manage, and oversee it.
- 6To apply oneself or one's energies forcefully to a task.
- 7To direct or turn one's course or journey toward a particular destination.
- 8To pretend, counterfeit, or simulate something.
- 9To design, shape, or fashion something, whether mechanically or artistically.
- 10To strain something or make it tense; to stretch it tight.
Use it in a sentence
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Origin
It comes from Middle English intenden, borrowed from Old French entendre, from Latin intendō, intendere. It largely replaced the native Old English word myntan ("to mean, intend; to think"), and it is a doublet of entendre.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Intend comes from Middle English intenden. en.wiktionary.org
- The Middle English word was borrowed from Old French entendre, derived from Latin intendō, intendere. en.wiktionary.org
- Intend largely displaced native Old English myntan. en.wiktionary.org
- Myntan meant ‘to mean, intend’ and ‘to think’. en.wiktionary.org
- Intend and English entendre are doublets. en.wiktionary.org