Motive

Acceptable For Game Play - US & UK word lists

This word is acceptable for play in the US & UK dictionaries that are being used in the following games:

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
  • n. An emotion, desire, physiological need, or similar impulse that acts as an incitement to action.
  • n. A motif in art, literature, or music.
  • adj. Causing or able to cause motion: motive power.
  • adj. Impelling to action: motive pleas.
  • adj. Of or constituting an incitement to action.
  • v. To motivate.
  • Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
  • n. An incentive to act; a reason for doing something; anything that prompted a choice of action.
  • n. A motif; a theme or subject, especially one that is central to the work or often repeated.
  • v. To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.
  • adj. Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move; as, a motive argument; motive power.
  • adj. Relating to motion and/or to its cause
  • the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
  • n. That which moves; a mover.
  • n. That which incites to action; anything prompting or exciting to choise, or moving the will; cause; reason; inducement; object; motivation{2}.
  • n. 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.
  • n. 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.
  • adj. Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move.
  • v. To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.
  • The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  • Causing motion; having power to move some one or something; tending to produce motion.
  • Moving or impelling force in a figurative sense.
  • That which moves, as a locomotive; in railroading, the locomotives collectively of a railroad: as, the super-intendent of the motive power.
  • n. A mental state or force which induces an act of volition; a determining impulse: specifically, a desire for something; a gratification contemplated as the final cause of a certain action of the one desiring it.
  • n. The design or object one has in any action; intention; purpose; the ideal object of desire.
  • n. One who or that which is the cause of something; an originator.
  • n. Movement.
  • n. Prevailing design.
  • n. . Motion; proposition.
  • n. Synonyms Motive, Reason, Inducement, Incentive, Impulse, consideration, prompting, stimulus. The differences among the first five of these words are suggested by the derivations. A motive is that which moves one to act, addressing the will, as though directly, and determining the choice; it is the common philosophical term, and may be collective: as, the whole field of motive. A reason is that which addresses the rational nature by way of argument for either belief or choice. An inducement leads one on by his desire for good: as, to hold out an additional inducement. An incentive urges one on like martial music. An impulse drives one on, but is transitory.
  • To act on as a motive, or with the force of a motive; prompt; instigate.
  • WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
  • n. 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
  • n. a theme that is repeated or elaborated in a piece of music
  • adj. causing or able to cause motion
  • n. a design or figure that consists of recurring shapes or colors, as in architecture or decoration
  • adj. impelling to action
  • Equivalent
    causative   
    Verb Form
    motived    motives    motiving   
    Hypernym
    Words that are more generic or abstract
    figure    pattern    design   
    Cross Reference
    Variant
    leading    motivo   
    Synonym
    Words with the same meaning
    cause    reason    incentive    stimulus    inducement    incitement    spur    mover    object    motivation   
    Rhyme
    Words with the same terminal sound
    Same Context
    Words that are found in similar contexts
    feeling    impulse    intention    principle    reason    purpose    consideration    ambition    object    circumstance