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motive English

Meaning motive meaning

What does motive mean?

Definitions in simple English

motive Noun

— A motive is a reason to do something. The man says he has no motive for killing his wife. What are the motives behind this change?

motive

— noun (= motivation) 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 we did not understand his motivation he acted with the best of motives — adjective (= motor) causing or able to cause motion a motive force motive power motor energy — adjective (= motivative, motivating) impelling to action it may well be that ethical language has primarily a motivative function — Arthur Pap motive pleas motivating arguments — noun (= motif) a design or figure that consists of recurring shapes or colors, as in architecture or decoration — noun (= motif) a theme that is repeated or elaborated in a piece of music

Synonyms motive synonyms

What other words have the same or similar meaning as motive?

motive English » English

cause reason incentive motif purpose motivation inducement stimulus intention aim occasion spur object motor meaning impulse gist drive stimulator pretext opinion objective motivate impellent idea ground fillip excuse cue account will topos theme subject stimulation start source provocation origin need moving motivative motivating locomotive induce incitement impetus goal encouragement design

Topics motive topics

What do people use motive to talk about?

Grammar Connected with, related Dependency relations Cause

Reason

What words reason why someone does something?

reason motive motivation

Examples motive examples

How do I use motive in a sentence?

Simple sentences

Who had a motive to kill Tom?

Nobody seemed to have a motive for the murder.

Now we are better able to understand their motive.

The motive for the murder is not yet known.

Jealousy was the motive for the murder.

What was his motive for setting the house on fire?

What's his motive for committing murder?

What was your motive?

Whatever the motive of these extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them.

You may rest assured; I have no ulterior motive in making this donation.

What was his motive for doing it?

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

Tom had no motive to kill Mary.

Movie subtitles

We can't discount that being a possible motive.

If you want motive, look a little harder at that crazy vegan, Victoria Speigleman.

Sir, that sounds like motive.

I suppose, sir, the skater with the most immediate motive would be Sophie Palmer.

But I remain skeptical that merely keeping her daughter from skating could be motive for murder.

The one thing they haven't got on me is a motive.

The defense was quick to point out, as their only defense, that we could establish no clear, indisputable motive for the crime.

Well, gentlemen, murder without motive seems to be the fashion of the day.

First, because no really sufficient motive has ever been discovered for this crime, and secondly, because you yourself were elected to your present high office mainly through the public acclaim you received through the conviction of your own friend.

It means that the state has finally found a motive for the killing of Snow.

You had a perfectly good motive.

My dear Lidia, I understand your motive perfectly but a woman like Anna is naturally subject to certain attentions from young men whose enthusiasms overcome their discretion.

You're right. That's the motive.

Yes, that. that looks very like a motive to me.

The first thing to do is to find the motive.

What was the motive of the Beaugard crooks?

It was wrong of him to steal it. but the motive was very touching.

What does the motive matter?

And our motive?

A motive for the mutiny.

Yes, Holt's real motive then was very much what ours is now.

There is the motive.

All we lack is the motive and we'll have that as soon as this fellow spills.

Then perhaps you can suggest a more likely motive.

True enough, you've established a great motive for the lady but we've got one equally good against Stephens, Macy Rainbow Benny and.

But taking into consideration the motive which actuated both misdemeanors I hereby suspend sentence.

She must know the motive.

RAYMOND NEY, DETECTIVE, STRANGLED Motive thought to be Mr. Jacks diamant.

As you seem to have worked out the whole thing so carefully, perhaps you can provide us also with a motive.

I've read enough detective stories to know that there must always be a motive.

Here she is, the missing link, the witness who will help supply the motive.

There's where you'll find your motive.

You want to know if I can suggest any motive as to why Mrs. De Winter should have taken her life?

In every crime there has to be a motive.

They never even found a motive.

I don't say you killed Marriott, but you could've for a good, old-fashioned motive.

Not by a long shot. You pinned the evidence on me, but when the police finish digging, they'll find out you had a better motive.

That might give Mr Brady a motive. But we are only guessing.

News and current affairs

Their direct motive is to help others, and their giving makes them happier only as a consequence of the fact that it does help others.

The US Congress, for example, defines terrorism as including a motive to coerce or intimidate a population or influence a government.

If the motive of the airline hijackers was simply to kill infidels, their attack would fall outside the Congressional definition.

The US motive in mobilizing air power to protect them is unquestionably humanitarian.

With the bulk of its baby boomers retiring in the coming decade, Germany has a valid motive to save.

Whatever America's motive, it later wisely decided to join the UN effort.

Capitalism would have done its work, and the profit motive would resume its place in the rogues' gallery.

Looking around the world in 2004, you begin to understand Popper's motive: freedom always means living with risk, but without security, risk means only threats, not opportunities.

Darwin himself was much influenced by Christian ideas, especially where we least expect it: in his belief in natural selection--the bane of the Church--as evolution's motive force.

Nationalism has been the major motive force in the West since the beginning of the modern period.

Historians have noted its influence in Elizabethan England (which produced the spirit animating the Puritan Rebellion and migration to America), and increasingly recognize it as the motive force behind the French and the Russian Revolutions.

That is why competition for national prestige has been the main motive in international politics since the beginning of the twentieth century.

If so, he got the applause; but, given the current polls, the latter motive would be quite a gamble.

All around the world people ask: what is the real motive for the Bush Administration's threatened war with Iraq?

From an ethical perspective, however, should we care so much about the purity of the motive with which the gift was made?

China's motive for reviving Pax Mongolica is clear.

Russia, too, has an economic motive for developing Eurasia.

But this formula does not clearly cover even the terrorist attacks of September 2001. If the motive of the airline hijackers was simply to kill infidels, their attack would fall outside the Congressional definition.

But China has another motive for tightening the noose on rare-earth exports: it wants to force high-tech firms to operate in China, so that local companies can absorb their technologies.

But WMD were not the only motive for war.

A reduction in borrowing costs constituted a powerful motive in the 1990's for southern European governments to join the monetary union.

Yet the profit motive, essential in so many fields, seems to have disappointed in one crucial area: education.

The market economy and the profit motive have led to extremely high living standards in many places.

If raters' profits depend on such performance - on the accuracy of their ratings - the profit motive would turn from a source of perverse incentives to a provider of beneficial incentives.

This is in marked contrast to the conventional view in the West that the prime motive for Islamist terrorism is religious.

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