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intensive purposes or intents and purposes?
If you are casting about for the phrase that is used to say that “one thing has the same effect or result as something else,” you are looking for for all intents and purposes; you are not looking for intensive purposes. Your purposes may indeed be intensive in some way (we don’t want to know the details), but these two words are not commonly found together as an idiom. The pairing of intents and purposes comes from a 1546 Act of Parliament conveying that King Henry VIII had unlimited power to interpret laws; it contained the phrase “to all intents, constructions, and purposes.”
Examples of intensive in a Sentence
Kate Nishimura, Sourcing Journal, 13 May 2025
The department conducts an annual review of each state, and a more intensive one that’s supposed to be completed roughly every five years.
—Becca Savransky, Idaho Statesman, 13 May 2025
Katie Campione, Deadline, 8 May 2025
Panel discussions, artist intensives and professional education workshops are also on offer.
—Emily McClanathan, Chicago Tribune, 13 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for intensive
Cite this Entry
“Intensive.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intensive. Accessed 19 May. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
intensive
1 of 2 adjective
intensive
2 of 2 nounMedical Definition
intensive
adjective
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