common purpose

common purpose (plural common purposes)

1. A purpose or intent shared by all members of a group.
   • 1951 April, D. S. Barrie, “British Railways: A Survey, 1948-1950”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 223:

     These tasks may be summarised as comprising the maintenance and improvement of railway services and facilities during a transitional period; the reorganising of systems of management and technical practices, so as to secure maximum efficiency and economy from the fusion of four major railway systems (using for these purposes all the resources and traditional skill of the former companies); and the building-up of a sense of common purpose and esprit de corps among a staff of more than 600,000 men and women.

   • 1986, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Part I, section 1(1)”, in Public Order Act 1986‎^Wikisource, pages 3-4:

     Where 12 or more persons who are present together or threaten unlawful violence for a common purpose and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for use his personal safety, each of the persons using unlawful violence for the common purpose is guilty of riot.