intension

From Latin intēnsiō (“straining, effort; intensifying”), from intēnsus (“stretched”), perfect passive participle of intendō (“strain or stretch toward”).^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtɛnʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Homophone: intention

intension (plural intensions)

1. intensity or the act of becoming intense.^[1]
   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     Sounds […] likewise do rise and fall with the intension or remission of the wind.

2. (logic, semantics) Any property or quality connoted by a word, phrase or other symbol, contrasted with actual instances in the real world to which the term applies.

   Antonym: extension

   Holonym: comprehension

   'Is a plant', 'has a trunk', 'has leaves' are intensions of the concept tree. Its extension is the set of all trees existing in the real world.

   • 1859–1860, William Hamilton, edited by H[enry] L[ongueville] Mansel and John Veitch, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:

     This law is, that the intension of our knowledge is in the inverse ratio of its extension.

3. (dated) A straining, stretching, or bending; the state of being strained.

   the intension of a musical string

• Not to be confused with intention.

• intenzion

Compare Italian intenzione

intension f (invariable)

1. intention, aim, purpose