Aim

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /eɪm/

Definitions

1. To point or direct a weapon or object towards a target ; to have a specific intention or goal in mind ; the act of directing something toward a target or objective
2. To align or focus an object at a particular point ; to plan or intend to accomplish something ; the action of targeting or focusing on a goal
3. To adjust or position something so it points to a desired place ; to seek to achieve a certain outcome ; the process of directing efforts or attention towards a target

Etymology: The verb "aim" began as a word for judging, not shooting. Its ancestor, Old French "aesmer", meant to estimate or value, and it came from Latin "aestimare", "to estimate", which also gave English "esteem" and "estimate". Over the centuries the sense narrowed from weighing a value to taking careful measure of a target, and the archery sense of directing a weapon followed. The compound may have first formed in Medieval Latin as "adaestimare", though it is also possible it arose in Old French. The noun has a more tangled path. It came from Old French "esme", a word meaning estimate or judgement, which carried the same idea of reckoning that the verb once did. The noun's sense of a target or goal developed from the verb's aiming sense, so the word for a goal and the word for a judgement share a single root.

Synonyms: goal, objective, target, intention, purpose

Antonyms: aimlessness, distraction, detachment, indifference, inattention