intending

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of intend.

   Intending no offense, he asked about her age directly.

   The travelers, intending to reach the coast by nightfall, set off at dawn.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs: it is a participle in phrases like intending to reach the coast, and a gerund when the act of intending is itself the subject or object. It often takes a to-infinitive or a direct object (intending no offense). It never takes a plural. Only the philosophers' noun has the plural intendings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The mental process by which a person intends something; intention.

   Like aiming an arrow before releasing it: the directing of the mind toward a target.

   Philosophers carefully distinguish intending from mere wishing or hoping.

   The dispute turned on the buyer's intending, not on the words actually spoken.

   Similarintention, intent, purpose

   Note

   A term of philosophy, at home in phenomenology, for the mind's act of aiming at something rather than the aim itself. Unlike everyday intention, it is countable and plural: F. Kersten's Phenomenological Method (2012) pairs "intendings and positings," sorting them by whether the ego is engaged. Outside such technical writing, intention is the more natural word.

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