goals

noun

plural of goal
as in objectives
something that one hopes or intends to accomplish leaving the world a better place than I found it is one of my main goals

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of goals The Sun conjoins Mercury in Virgo and your 10th House of Career, Reputation, Authority, and Public Life, helping your goals become easier to explain. — Tarot.com, The Orlando Sentinel, 27 Aug. 2026 Sanchez also had a pair of goals in the Courage’s 2-1 victory over the Boston Legacy on Saturday. — Los Angeles Times, 27 Aug. 2026 The agreement also includes specific goals around false positive rates — that is, minors who are identified as over 18. — Barbara Ortutay, Fortune, 27 Aug. 2026 The 27-year-old joined Milan from Lille in 2019 and has made 291 appearances for the club, providing 80 goals and 61 assists and winning the 2021-22 Serie A title. — James Horncastle, New York Times, 26 Aug. 2026 The attacks have also served Ukraine’s war goals by unsettling Russians living far from the front line and hurting the Russian economy. — ABC News, 26 Aug. 2026 Tell your care team about things happening outside of the office that may impact your treatment goals, such as important upcoming events, such as a graduation, wedding or fertility concerns. — Nicole Pajer, PEOPLE, 26 Aug. 2026 The 30-year-old surrendered 12 goals in his first four outings. — CBS News, 20 Aug. 2026 In a May 2017 team video on Instagram, Reales Dominguez described his goals for the team that season — winning the district championship and getting an invitation to the state tournament. — Stephen Hobbs, Sacbee.com, 20 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for goals
  1. objectives
  2. purposes
  3. plans
  4. aims
  5. intentions
  6. ambitions
  7. ideas
  8. intents
Noun
  • Russian forces have long targeted the strategic cities of Kostyantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk as part of a push to completely capture the Donetsk Oblast, one of the Kremlin’s key objectives in the conflict.
    — Sam Meredith, CNBC, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Technical objectives and operational milestones are expected to be disclosed as the programs progress.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of objectives
Noun
  • Anthropic wanted assurance that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance, and the DOD wanted Anthropic to grant the agency unfettered access to Claude across all lawful purposes.
    — Ashley Capoot, CNBC, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Governments generally don’t need a model that’s as powerful as what’s on the frontier to automate a few tasks; Ting explains that a tiny model, even one with as few as 1 billion parameters, can suit those purposes.
    — Nicholas Gordon, Fortune, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of purposes
Noun
  • In December, Australia became the first country to ban social media for kids under 16, and countries including Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Indonesia have since enacted or approved similar plans.
    — Rachel Hale, USA Today, 26 Aug. 2026
  • Several Kansas City community leaders are calling for residents to have a meaningful role in selecting the city’s next police chief, weeks after Stacey Graves announced plans to retire next year.
    — Ben Wheeler, Kansas City Star, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of plans
Noun
  • Moving away from a retrospective punishment mechanism appealed to Portsmouth too, as did the shift to a focus on liquidity, something which meshes with the aims of the independent football regulator, which recently came into operation in England.
    — Chris Weatherspoon, New York Times, 14 Aug. 2026
  • Vance’s comments also seemed to suggest that the administration was more acutely focused on the economic impact of the war than the original aims of the war itself.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 13 Aug. 2026
Definition of aims
Noun
  • Early on, Issa and Paul Baker each confess their private intentions for the night to a friend.
    — Ben Rosenstock, Vulture, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White have since declared their intentions to enter the WNBA Draft.
    — Ryan Gaydos , Alejandro Avila OutKick, FOXNews.com, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of intentions
Noun
  • Riders from different teams—direct competitors with different sponsors, leaders, and ambitions—form a dense, fast-moving pack.
    — Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Review, 27 Aug. 2026
  • There’s a glint of Miss Piggy’s quick wit in the comedic edge and blonde ambitions of Jennifer Coolidge.
    — Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of ambitions
Noun
  • Trying to fit Hinduism into Western categories of theisms diverges from the tradition’s diverse history of ideas while mixing internal understandings with European perspectives and categories.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Algorithms can be implemented in different programming languages, in much the same way that ideas can be expressed in English, Mandarin, or Arabic.
    — Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of ideas
Noun
  • But ProPublica and The Post found that Richardson was, for all intents and purposes, still in charge of the club, a violation of his suspension.
    — Molly Hensley-Clancy, ProPublica, 20 Aug. 2026
  • Nearly every customer relationship, operational workflow, escalation path and commercial outcome emerges from one of these two conversational intents.
    — Naresh Prajapati, Forbes.com, 22 July 2026
Definition of intents

Browse Nearby Words

go along
goals
goat
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Cite this Entry

“Goals.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/goals. Accessed 1 Sep. 2026.

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