Presenting an action or event’s significance as being the process or experience instead of the end accomplishment or goal.
Used in a Sentence
atelic
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for atelic.
Editorial note
The atelic ideal seems similar to the mindfulness goals, but framed differently, in terms of types of rewards.
Examples16
Definitions4
Parts of speech1
Quick take
Presenting an action or event’s significance as being the process or experience instead of the end accomplishment or goal.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of atelic gathered in one view.
Not tending nor directed toward a goal or specific end.
(grammar) That expresses lacking an end, resolution, or finite purpose.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for atelic.
adjective
Presenting an action or event’s significance as being the process or experience instead of the end accomplishment or goal.
adjective
Not tending nor directed toward a goal or specific end.
adjective
(grammar) That expresses lacking an end, resolution, or finite purpose.
adjective
(linguistics) That expresses the imperfective aspect.
Example sentences
The atelic ideal seems similar to the mindfulness goals, but framed differently, in terms of types of rewards.
However, the idea of a continuous process being the goal seems orthogonal to the telic/atelic distinction.
He talks about telic vs atelic activities in Four Thousand Weeks, taken from the book Midlife.
And it sounds like you're heavily skewed to the painful side of atelic work.
Are there any atelic activities (for humans!), taking a walk with someone doesn't have a destination but it does (always?) have a goal.
What seems to me to be the heart of this piece is the telic-atelic distinction, which seems useful and deserving of more attention.
You can also have atelic activities that don't have any goals.
Life needs a balance in the matrix of [painful/pleasurable + telic/atelic].
I also really liked the telic-atelic distinction and would like to read more about it.
What’s nice about atelic goals is they tend to be mutually exclusive and force you to choose where you will devote your time to lifelong improvement.
You're talking about telic (finite) vs atelic (infinite) activities.
Consider Schopenhauer‘s telic vs atelic pursuits vis-a-vis happiness.
Quote examples
Yes, to use the terms of the article, it would be about turning the "telic" into an "atelic".
There's some parallels, it seems, between the telic-atelic distinction on the one hand, and the distinction between more stereotypical "western" goal-oriented notions of success or happiness, and recent foci of mindfulness and other things having a kind of Buddhist bent.
Proper noun examples
Atelic activities are those activities where the continuous process is the goal.
Atelic pursuits, on the other hand, have no end.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use atelic in a sentence?
The atelic ideal seems similar to the mindfulness goals, but framed differently, in terms of types of rewards.
What does atelic mean?
Presenting an action or event’s significance as being the process or experience instead of the end accomplishment or goal.
What part of speech is atelic?
atelic is commonly used as adjective.