If it bothers you, you could work around the semantics and talk about its empirical purpose or observed purpose, vs intended purpose, rather than using purpose and expecting it to be interpreted in a particular way.
I think the jarring alternative definition of "purpose" is an intentional mental hack: to break people out of orienting themselves around design intent, when processes often go out of alignment with that. It's easy for humans to fool themselves. Taking a dispassionate, empirical view when considering what a process is doing, or analyzing what its range of behaviors is, can illuminate many problems.
I think the jarring alternative definition of "purpose" is an intentional mental hack: to break people out of orienting themselves around design intent, when processes often go out of alignment with that. It's easy for humans to fool themselves. Taking a dispassionate, empirical view when considering what a process is doing, or analyzing what its range of behaviors is, can illuminate many problems.