Intend vs Signify - What's the difference?
intend | signify | Related terms |
To fix the mind upon (something to be accomplished); be intent upon; mean; design; plan; purpose.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1
, passage=The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.}}
*{{quote-book, year=1935, author=
, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=1
, passage=She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.}}
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=
, volume=188, issue=26, page=6, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= To fix the mind on; attend to; take care of; superintend; regard.
(obsolete) To stretch to extend; distend.
To strain; make tense.
(obsolete) To intensify; strengthen.
*, Bk.I, New York, 2001, p.139:
To apply with energy.
To bend or turn; direct, as one’s course or journey.
To design mechanically or artistically; ; mold.
To pretend; counterfeit; simulate.
To give (something) a meaning or an importance.
To show one’s intentions with a sign etc.
* (rfdate) (William Shakespeare)
* (rfdate) (Jonathan Swift)
To mean; to betoken.
* (rfdate) (William Shakespeare)
Intend is a related term of signify.
As verbs the difference between intend and signify
is that intend is to fix the mind upon (something to be accomplished); be intent upon; mean; design; plan; purpose while signify is to give (something) a meaning or an importance.intend
English
Verb
(en verb)George Goodchild
Ed Pilkington
‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told, passage=In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.}}
- Dotage, fatuity, or follyis for the most part intended or remitted in particular men, and thereupon some are wiser than others […].
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* mean, mint, foremindAnagrams
* * *signify
English
Verb
(en-verb)- I'll to the king; and signify to him / That thus I have resign'd my charge to you.
- The government should signify to the Protestants of Ireland that want of silver is not to be remedied.
- A tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.
