Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The true meaning or intention of something, especially of a law.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Understanding; intelligence.
  • noun Intention; design; purpose.
  • noun True intention or meaning: specifically used of a person or a law, or of any legal instrument.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Charge; oversight.
  • noun Intention; design; purpose.
  • noun (Law) The true meaning, understanding, or intention of a law, or of any legal instrument.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun law the sense in which the legal system interprets something, especially the intention of legislation

Etymologies

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Examples

  • For it is not the letter, but the intendment, or meaning; that is to say, the authentic interpretation of the law (which is the sense of the legislator), in which the nature of the law consisteth; and therefore the interpretation of all laws dependeth on the authority sovereign; and the interpreters can be none but those which the sovereign, to whom only the subject oweth obedience, shall appoint.

    Leviathan 2007

  • Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of doing.

    Othello, the Moore of Venice 2004

  • Ad placitum, are the characters real before mentioned, and words: although some have been willing by curious inquiry, or rather by apt feigning, to have derived imposition of names from reason and intendment; a speculation elegant, and, by reason it searcheth into antiquity, reverent, but sparingly mixed with truth, and of small fruit.

    The Advancement of Learning 2003

  • The truly dedicated are not easily swayed from their intendment.

    Diuturnity's Dawn Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 2002

  • The truly dedicated are not easily swayed from their intendment.

    Diuturnity's Dawn Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 2002

  • And what glory is there in that, which almost constantly brings forth contrary effects to its own proper end and intendment?

    The Sermons of John Owen 1616-1683 1968

  • What is the Lord's intendment towards you, I know not.

    The Sermons of John Owen 1616-1683 1968

  • The use and efficacy of that pillar, the intendment of God in it, the advantage of the people by it, I cannot stay to unfold: -- it may suffice, in general, that it was a great and signal pledge of God's presence with them, for their guidance and preservation; that they might act according to his will, and enjoy safety in so doing.

    The Sermons of John Owen 1616-1683 1968

  • I shall only observe, by the way, not to look into the difficulties of these verses, that I be not too long detained from my principal intendment, -- that the apostle makes a distribution of the world into heaven and earth, and saith, they "were destroyed with water, and perished."

    The Sermons of John Owen 1616-1683 1968

  • Though the word be general and large, yet in my intendment it is restrained to the particulars insisted on, -- namely, the constant establishment of our souls in receiving the Lord Jesus, tendered unto us in the truth and from the love of the Father, for the pardon of sins, and acceptation of our persons before God.

    The Sermons of John Owen 1616-1683 1968

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