intent

intent n *intention, purpose, design, aim, end, object, objective, goal

Analogous words: *will, volition, conation

Antonyms: accident

Contrasted words: *chance, hap, luck, fortune, hazard

intent adj Intent, engrossed, absorbed, rapt mean having one's mind or attention deeply fixed on something.

Intent implies that one's mind, one's desires, or one's energies are eagerly bent on something; it therefore suggests a directing of the entire attention toward a particular end or thing

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persons whose hearts are wholly bent toward pleasure, or intent upon gain— Spectator

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the wise author intent on getting at truth— Quiller-Couch

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for all its hideous scars is no dead city, but one grimly intent on survival— Cassidy

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Engrossed implies monopolization of one's attention either by a driving purpose or emotion or an eager interest or by the force or urgency of circumstances beyond one's control

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he appears to have been so engrossed by domestic issues as to have given little attention to foreign problems—PP. L. Langer

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Sieveking was naturally engrossed in the musical problem, which was perplexing enough— Hilton

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these constitutional changes . . . were pushed through during and after the war by a group of busybodies who were not too much engrossed by the agony of their country to conduct a raging agitation in all parts of England— Inge

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Absorbed often differs little from engrossed in this sense

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the point is that Broch is never engrossed in, and never permits the reader to become absorbed by, the story itself— Arendt

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but it may carry a stronger suggestion of the power of the thing on which the attention is fixed to capture one's attention and to hold it firmly so that there is difficulty in distracting it

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wholly absorbed in his preparations for saving souls in the gold camps—blind to everything else— Cather

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human beings are prone to become absorbed in themselves, unable to be interested in what they see and hear or in anything outside their own skins— Russell

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already they had read Farthest North. Imogen, at eight years old, had read it, absorbed, breathless, intent, tongue clenched between teeth— Rose Macaulay

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Rapt implies both extreme intentness and complete absorption, as though one were taken out of oneself or were in an ecstatic trance

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rapt in adoring contemplation— Farrar

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expounded the ultimate meaning of existence to the white, rapt faces of Humanity— L. P. Smith

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in openmouthed wonder the lama turned to this and that, and finally checked in rapt attention before a large alto-relief representing a coronation or apotheosis of the Lord Buddha— Kipling

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Analogous words: attending or attentive, minding, watching (see corresponding verbs at TEND): *abstracted, preoccupied: concentrated (see COMPACT vb): riveted (see SECURE vb)

Antonyms: distracted