Planful

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Having (many) plans.
  2. 2
    Intentional.

    "Is an infant who delights in such repetitive actions as swatting a brightly colored mobile or making a toy duck quack engaging in planful or intentional behavior? Piaget said no: the secondary circular reaction is not a fully intentional response, because the interesting result it produces was discovered by chance and was not a purposeful goal the first time the action was performed."

Example

More examples

"Is an infant who delights in such repetitive actions as swatting a brightly colored mobile or making a toy duck quack engaging in planful or intentional behavior? Piaget said no: the secondary circular reaction is not a fully intentional response, because the interesting result it produces was discovered by chance and was not a purposeful goal the first time the action was performed."

Etymology

From plan + -ful.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.