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/mˈoʊtɪv/ Listen

noun

Motive n.

1.

That which moves; a mover. (Obs.)

2.

That which incites to action; anything prompting or exciting to choise, or moving the will; cause; reason; inducement; object; motivation (2). "By motive, I mean the whole of that which moves, excites, or invites the mind to volition, whether that be one thing singly, or many things conjunctively."

3.

(Mus.) The theme or subject; a leading phrase or passage which is reproduced and varied through the course of a comor a movement; a short figure, or melodic germ, out of which a whole movement is develpoed. See also Leading motive, under Leading. (Written also motivo)

4.

(Fine Arts) That which produces conception, invention, or creation in the mind of the artist in undertaking his subject; the guiding or controlling idea manifested in a work of art, or any part of one.

Synonyms: Incentive; incitement; inducement; reason; spur; stimulus; cause. Motive, Inducement, Reason. Motive is the word originally used in speaking of that which determines the choice. We call it an inducement when it is attractive in its nature. We call it a reason when it is more immediately addressed to the intellect in the form of argument.

verb

Motive v. t. To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.

adjective

Motive adj. Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move; as, a motive argument; motive power. "Motive faculty."

Motive power (Mach.), a natural agent, as water, steam, wind, electricity, etc., used to impart motion to machinery; a motor; a mover.

See images of 'Motive'

Etymology of 'Motive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"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

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