Intentionally

How to spell intentionally

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce intentionally

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does intentionally mean?

1. adverbOn purpose; in a way that is deliberate rather than accidental.

Intentionally in a sentence

• She intentionally left her phone at home to avoid distractions during the meeting.

• The report was intentionally vague to protect the company from liability.

Where does intentionally come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb tendere, which literally meant 'to stretch' or 'to aim', and its related noun intentio, meaning 'a stretching out' or 'a purpose'. The mental image is of stretching the mind toward a goal, which is exactly how the sense of deliberate purpose developed. The noun 'intention' arrived in English through Old French during the 1300s, and the adjective 'intentional' followed, with the adverb 'intentionally' built on top by adding the familiar -ly ending. The same tendere root surfaces in a surprising family of words, including 'tend', 'tension', 'extend', and 'attention', all of which involve some kind of stretching or directing. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the -tion- spelling of the /shun/ sound, plus the double l that appears once -al meets -ly, giving the full chain tion + al + ly.

How the word is built

• in- (toward)
• tent (from tendere: to stretch, aim)
• -ion (noun)
• -al (adjective)
• -ly (adverb)