Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Motive   /mˈoʊtɪv/   Listen
Motive

noun
1.
The psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior.  Synonyms: motivation, need.  "He acted with the best of motives"
2.
A theme that is repeated or elaborated in a piece of music.  Synonym: motif.
3.
A design or figure that consists of recurring shapes or colors, as in architecture or decoration.  Synonym: motif.
adjective
1.
Causing or able to cause motion.  Synonym: motor.  "Motive power" , "Motor energy"
2.
Impelling to action.  Synonyms: motivating, motivative.  "Motive pleas" , "Motivating arguments"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Motive" Quotes from Famous Books



... cast at him by the hated Patrician maiden, ascribing his removal to Rufinus house to a motive which, in truth, had been far from his, had so enraged and agitated him that his old lungs, at all times feeble, refused their office. This woman had done him a fresh wrong, for he had gone to live with the widow from the kindest impulse; only an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... enough he had acted queerly, and did not mean to deny that; but, as children and confused persons often do, he answered to the underlying motive rather than the language. He only thought of denying the inference of suspicion that her words seemed to him to suggest. But to Mrs. Kilgore he very naturally ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... that to Marcia, this was the greatest moment of her strange passion. Fear was its dominant motive, Jerry's innocence its inspiration. If he had crushed the breath from her body, I think she would have died rapturously. But Jerry, it seems, tore himself from her and moved some distance away, I think, his head bent into the ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... undoubtedly would resume the bombardment later on, and they might also receive reinforcements sufficient to resume the attack at the mouth of the pass, or at least to keep up there a distant fire that would prove troublesome. Every motive prompted to farther flight, and they pushed on as fast as they could, although the bottom of the defile became rough, sown with bowlders and dangerous to ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... to wider and more enlarged conceptions and to penetrate ever more deeply into the essence of things, the forms of the Roman faith remained at, or sank to, a singularly low level of conception and of insight. While in the case of the Greek every influential motive speedily expanded into a group of forms and gathered around it a circle of legends and ideas, in the case of the Roman the fundamental thought remained stationary in its original naked rigidity. The religion of Rome had ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com