According to definition #1 of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language the purpose is: The object toward which one strives or for which something exists; an aim or a goal.
Definition #7 of scope in Collins English Dictionary , explains scope as purpose or aim.
According to Collins English Dictionary, definition #3: the area covered by an activity, topic, etc; range.
I understand that the context will help us to distinguish which sense is appropriate:
- The scope of this work is vast. Here is the meaning #3 from Collins.
- The scope of this work is to describe… Here is the meaning #7 from Collins.
My question is: which meaning should I choose for the word scope in Directive 2009/125/EC , page 5, article 1, Subject matter and scope.
Is the meaning of purpose, goal? If so, is the scope more formal than purpose or goal since it is used in official documents? Why then it’s defined this way only at definition #7?
Edit: In my language we have only one word to describe objective, aim goal, target, etc. It’s “SCOP” from Greek skopos, or Latin scopus.
Best Answer
No. scope in this context is not a 'goal' as you think.
Scope here simply means...
If I'm talking about scope of Enterprise Mobility in the context of mobile apps development, it'd include its analysis, future scope (how is it in the future?), research, profitability and lot more things associated with the main topic and its reason to discuss.
Extending my example further, to address the title of your question, the purpose of presenting Enterprise Mobility could be creating awareness or simply marketing our mobile app services.
Clearly, purpose and scope are different.