Learn English – intention vs. purpose

meaningnuanceword-usage

Oxford Dictionaries define the nouns as

  • intention
    A thing intended; an aim or plan
  • purpose
    The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists

So which sentence sounds more natural to a native speaker?

  1. I studied physics with the intention of becoming a physicist, but I recently felt no vocation to it.

Or

  1. I studied physics for the purpose of becoming a physicist, but I recently felt no vocation to it.

Best Answer

'With the purpose' implies that the thing you are doing is contributing to your goal. 'With the intention' only implies that you had another goal in mind. The action doesn't have to contribute to it.

So you can say

I went for a walk with the intention of finishing my studies later.

The walk doesn't contribute to the studies, so you could not substitute ' purpose' for 'intention'. If ' purpose' is correct you can usually substitute 'Intention'.