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Motive   /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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Motive" Quotes from Famous Books



... and obscured by contiguous buildings, and the walls are luxuriantly fringed and mantled with mosses, lichens, and broad leaved ivy. The proud aqueducts of the expanding city diminish the value and importance of this spring, but it was unquestionably the ruling motive which determined Romulus, or possibly an earlier colony of Greeks, to take root here, as within the wide compass of the Roman walls there is no other source of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now is a less sum per head than was the debt of our Revolution when we came out of that struggle; and the money value in the country now bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than does the population. Surely each man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had then ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... ruins, in the neighbourhood, as it may add a zest to his perambulations to know something about them. The descriptions will probably be brief, leaving a margin to be filled in by his own personal observation, thus affording him a motive for further enquiry, and an aim and object for the rambles, which may conduce to his health in the expansion alike of mind and of lung. Woodhall does not lie within what may be called the architectural zone of Lincolnshire. In the south, south-east, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... The motive which determined Snofrui's choice of Medum as a site, is unknown to us: perhaps he dwelt in that city of Heracleopolis, which in course of time frequently became the favourite residence of the kings; perhaps he improvised for himself a city in the plain between El-Wastah and Kafr el-Ayat. His ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the idea of taking money for what he regarded as part of a great public policy. "I would wish," he said, "that every individual who may hear that it was a favorite plan of mine may know also that I had no other motive for promoting it than the advantage of which I conceived it would be productive to the Union, and to this State in particular, by cementing the eastern and western territory together, at the same time that it will give vigor and increase to ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge


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