# intention

Pronunciation: say "in-TEN-shuhn" /ɪnˈtɛnʃən/

## Noun

1. A planned course of action that someone has decided to follow.
   - Simple: A plan for what someone has decided to do.
   - _His intention all along had been to sell the company quietly._
   - _She declared her intention to run for office next year._
2. The goal or purpose behind an action, statement, or decision.
   - Simple: The aim or reason behind doing something.
   - _The intention behind the new policy is to reduce food waste._
   - _I never doubted the good intention behind her blunt advice._
3. The biological process by which a wound repairs itself and closes.
   - Simple: The natural way a wound closes and heals over time.
   - _The surgeon closed the incision neatly to promote healing by first intention._
   - _Because the tissue loss was extensive, the wound healed by second intention over several weeks._

## Noun

4. The state of being stretched, strained, or pulled tight. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A pulling tight or stretching of something.
5. The earnest bending of the mind toward an object or purpose, shown in close application and fixed attention. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A strong, steady focus of the mind on one thing.
6. The object or end toward which one's thoughts are directed; the aim. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The thing someone aims at or has in mind.
7. A mental grasp or conception of an object; an idea formed in the mind. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: An idea or thought the mind forms about something.
   - _The mind forms an intention of the object before reasoning about it._
   - _Names, the old logicians held, signify intentions rather than things directly._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To have a course of action or a result in mind as one's plan or purpose.

## Origin

This word comes from Latin "intentiō, intentiōnem", which passed into Old French as "entencion" and then into Middle English as "entencioun" or "intention". It is related to "intent".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/intention (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).