Purposelessly

adv

adv ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    In a purposeless manner; to no end; for no reason.

    "The sparse grey locks he combed were fewer and greyer: and though the accustomed mouth circle was as obdurately set as of old, his head waggled purposelessly: and his hands fumbled stiffly as he folded and replaced his pocket comb."

Adverb
  1. 1
    without a clear purpose wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aimlesslyat randomgoallesslygoallesslyhaphazardlyinsignificantly

Example

More examples

"The sparse grey locks he combed were fewer and greyer: and though the accustomed mouth circle was as obdurately set as of old, his head waggled purposelessly: and his hands fumbled stiffly as he folded and replaced his pocket comb."

Etymology

From purposeless + -ly.

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