motive

plural motives

1. obsoleteAn idea or communication that makes one want to act, especially from spiritual sources; a divine prompting.First known use 14th–17th c.

   there's something in a woman beyond all human delight; a magnetic virtue, a charming quality, an occult and powerful motive.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition III, section 2, member 1, subsection ii

2. An incentive to act in a particular way; a reason or emotion that makes one want to do something; anything that prompts a choice of action.First known use 15th c.

   Many of them at first seemed kind to him, but it turned out their motives were not entirely altruistic.

   1947, Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock

   1 more example

   “Your job here is to find the good things in your colleagues—the things their state saw—and not focus on the bad.” I said I understand. “And, Joe, never attack another man’s motive, because you don’t know his motive.”

   2007, Joe Biden, Promises to Keep, New York: Random House, published 2008, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 110

   Synonyms: motivation, sake

3. lawSomething which causes someone to want to commit a crime; a reason for criminal behaviour.First known use 18th c.

   What would his motive be for burning down the cottage?

   3 more examples

   No-one could understand why she had hidden the shovel; her motives were obscure at best.

   “Why should Eldridge commit murder?[…]There was only one possible motive—namely, he wished to avoid detection as James Selby of Anaconda Ltd. […]”

   1931, Francis Beeding, “10/6”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps

   A few weeks before Brianna disappeared, she was attacked at a party by a woman named Keallie Lacross. Witnesses claimed the motive appeared to be romantic jealousy.

   2026 July 16, Nicholas Muhoro, “Inside the 2004 Brianna Maitland Case: One of Vermont’s Most Haunting Mysteries”, in Skip Boring, archived from the original on 21 Jul 2026

4. obsoleterareA limb or other bodily organ that can move.First known use 15th–17th c.

   every joint and motive of her body

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]

5. alternativefine artsarchitectureAlternative form of motif.

   If you listen carefully, you can hear the flutes mimicking the cello motive.

6. UKA party, gathering, or get-together.
7. UKOne's plans for the day or night.

   What's the motive for tonight, lads?

present singular third person motives · participle present motiving · participle past motived · past motived

1. transitiveTo prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.

   Synonyms: motivate

1. not comparableCausing motion; having power to move, or tending to move

   motive power

   2 more examples

   a motive argument

   In the motive parts of animals may be discovered mutuall proportions; not only in those of Quadrupeds, but in the thigh-bone, legge, foot-bone, and claws of Birds.

   1658, Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, Folio Society, published 2007, page 195

   Synonyms: moving, ambulatory, animate, kinetic, mobile, motile, movable, vagile

2. not comparableRelating to motion and/or to its cause

   Debussy's melody is fractional, fragmentary. But at the core all his music is melodic and melody is its main motive force.

   1929, Arthur Lourié, “An Inquiry into Melody”, in Modern Music, volume VII, number 1, page 10

   Synonyms: kinetic, motional