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Purposeful vs Impactful - What's the difference?

purposeful | impactful |

As adjectives the difference between purposeful and impactful

is that purposeful is having purpose; intentional while impactful is having impact.

purposeful

English

(Purpose)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having purpose; intentional.
  • Having a purpose in mind; resolute; determined.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=November 10 , author=Jeremy Wilson , title= England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report , work=Telegraph citation , page= , passage=An utterly emphatic 5-0 victory was ultimately capped by two wonder strikes in the last two minutes from Aston Villa midfielder Gary Gardner. Before that, England had utterly dominated to take another purposeful stride towards the 2013 European Championship in Israel. They have already established a five-point buffer at the top of Group Eight. }}

    Synonyms

    * determined * nose to the grindstone * focused

    Derived terms

    * purposefully * purposefulness

    Related terms

    * purposive

    impactful

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having impact.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1950 , year_published=2008 , edition=Digitized , editor= , author= , title=Movies: A Psychological Study , chapter= citation , genre= , publisher=Free Press , isbn= , page=22 , passage=We might suppose that some of the most impactful heroines of current films would combine these two functions: that of the good-bad girl ... }}
  • * 1969 , W. James Popham, "Curriculum Materials," Review of Educational Research , vol. 39, no. 3, p. 321:
    • It is strongly recommended that in the future such investigations not be reported in the literature unless they are designed to test the effects of some hopefully impactful treatment variation.
  • * 1982 , S. E. Taylor and S. C. Thompson, "Stalking the Elusive 'Vividness' Effect," Psychological Bulletin , vol. 89, no. 2, p. 155:
    • Everyone knows that vividly presented information is impactful and persuasive.
  • * 2001 , A. Mukherjee and W. D. Hoyer, "The Effect of Novel Attributes on Product Evaluation," The Journal of Consumer Research , vol. 28, no. 3, p. 463:
    • A dominant finding in psychology and consumer behavior has been that negative information is more impactful than positive information.
  • *

    • Usage notes

    * Proscribed by some authorities, who recommend “influential” or “effective” instead. Alternatively, one may rephrase to “have an impact” or “have a strong impact”. However, many usages can be found, particularly in business and education as well as in journalism and academic writing. * Usage is more common in the US.

    Synonyms

    * effectual, impactive

    Derived terms

    * impactfully * impactfulness

    References

    * * Historical usage frequency at Google books