What is another word for motive?

Synonyms for motive
ˈmoʊ tɪvmo·tive

This thesaurus page includes all potential synonyms, words with the same meaning and similar terms for the word motive.

Wiktionary2.0 / 1 vote

  1. motiveadjective

    Synonyms:
    motif, motivate, motional, moving, motivation

  2. motivenoun

    An incentive to act; a reason for doing something; anything that prompted a choice of action.

    Synonyms:
    moving, motivation, motif, motional, motivate

  3. motivenoun

    Relating to motion and/or to its cause

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

    Synonyms:
    motivation, motif, moving, motional

English Synonyms and Antonyms0.0 / 0 votes

  1. motive

    The efficient cause, that which makes anything to be or be done, is the common meaning of the word, as in the saying "There is no effect without a cause." Every man instinctively recognizes himself acting through will as the cause of his own actions. The Creator is the Great First Cause of all things. A condition is something that necessarily precedes a result, but does not produce it. An antecedent simply precedes a result, with or without any agency in producing it; as, Monday is the invariable antecedent of Tuesday, but not the cause of it. The direct antonym of cause is effect, while that of antecedent is consequent. An occasion is some event which brings a cause into action at a particular moment; gravitation and heat are the causes of an avalanche; the steep incline of the mountain-side is a necessary condition, and the shout of the traveler may be the occasion of its fall. Causality is the doctrine or principle of causes, causation the action or working of causes. Compare DESIGN; REASON.

    Synonyms:
    actor, agent, antecedent, author, causality, causation, cause, condition, creator, designer, former, fountain, occasion, origin, originator, power, precedent, reason, reason, source, spring

    Antonyms:
    consequence, creation, development, effect, end, end, event, fruit, issue, outcome, outgrowth, product, result

    Preposition:
    The cause of the disaster; cause for interference.

Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms0.0 / 0 votes

  1. motive

    Synonyms:
    inducement, purpose, design, prompting, stimulus, reason, impulse, incitement

    Antonyms:
    execution, action, effort, deed, attempt, project, preventive, deterrent, dissuasive

Princeton's WordNet0.0 / 0 votes

  1. motivation, motive, neednoun

    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"

    Synonyms:
    indigence, need, motivating, demand, pauperization, want, motivation, pauperism, motif, penury

    Antonyms:
    noncausal, noncausative

  2. motif, motivenoun

    a theme that is repeated or elaborated in a piece of music

    Synonyms:
    motivation, motif, need, theme

    Antonyms:
    noncausal, noncausative

  3. motif, motiveadjective

    a design or figure that consists of recurring shapes or colors, as in architecture or decoration

    Synonyms:
    motivation, motif, need, theme

    Antonyms:
    noncausal, noncausative

  4. motive(a), motoradjective

    causing or able to cause motion

    "a motive force"; "motive power"; "motor energy"

    Antonyms:
    noncausative, noncausal

  5. motivative(a), motive(a), motivatingadjective

    impelling to action

    "it may well be that ethical language has primarily a motivative function"- Arthur Pap; "motive pleas"; "motivating arguments"

    Antonyms:
    noncausal, noncausative

Matched Categories

Synonyms, Antonyms & Associated Words0.0 / 0 votes

  1. motivenoun

    Synonyms:
    incentive, inducement, incitement

PPDB, the paraphrase database0.0 / 0 votes

  1. List of paraphrases for "motive":

    motivation, mobile, reason, ground, incentive, motif

Suggested Resources

  1. motive

    Song lyrics by motive -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by motive on the Lyrics.com website.

How to pronounce motive?

How to say motive in sign language?

Words popularity by usage frequency

rankingword
#183need
#245design
#254want
#307power
#419source
#420author
#534mobile
#1067condition
#1223cause
#1246reason
#1249spring
#1258purpose
#1346ground
#1441agent
#1593moving
#1753former
#1829demand
#2168theme
#2518origin
#2589designer
#4288actor
#5463occasion
#5715creator
#7212incentive
#7769motivation
#8063fountain
#13290impulse
#13930motif
#16030stimulus
#16696precedent
#16875motive
#18233motivate
#19983originator
#24242motivating
#26096prompting
#32060causation
#34046causality
#44502antecedent
#53505inducement
#56224incitement
#138780motional
#168469penury
#210874indigence
#316503pauperism

How to use motive in a sentence?

  1. Mark Ostrowski:

    You can really simply break it down into two separate things. One is to just create disruption, whether thats slowing somebodys service or jumping on a meeting. The second things is money. If someone is having an aboard meeting for the first time over Zoom... thats a different motive.

  2. Juta Gurinaviciute:

    NZX hosts many of New Zealand's largest companies, including Fonterra Co-operative Group, which produces over 2 billion liters of milk every year and is the world's largest dairy exporter. Overseas investors owned roughly 40% of the equities market as of December 2018.DDoS attacks aim to disrupt service by flooding a network with large volumes of internet traffic. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange suffered a DDoS attack in September last year, which forced it to suspend trading, while Nasdaq, CBOE and BATS were hit by DDoS attacks for several days in 2012 resulting in patchy access to their websites but no disruptions to trading.The motive for the attack on New Zealand's stock market remains unclear and the exchange has not provided further details. How to protect yourself from cyberattacks while working from homeThis type of attack is becoming much more common, as cybercriminals capitalize on the growth in public clouds and sell their services cheaply on the dark web. DDoS attacks surged 542% in the first quarter of this year, compared to the final three months of 2019, according to cyber security company Nexusguard.''One reason why DDoS attacks are so inexpensive is that more and more people that offer DDoS-for-hire services are leveraging the scale and bandwidth of public clouds.

  3. Andy McCarthy:

    I don’t like ‘hate crimes’ charges because they overcomplicate violent crime prosecutions, sometimes incurably so, that is because they shift the emphasis from what the defendant did to what his motive was for doing it. That can be a trap, especially with a defendant who is likely to raise his mental capacity as a defense.

  4. Mickey Mehta:

    Don't make sacrifices in life, instead turn them into offerings of love. Sacrifice is painful and offerings are pleasurable, just change your perspective, feelings, motive and not your action. Your offerings will sky -rise, this world will be nurtured to MickeyMize.

  5. Gerald Shargel:

    She was upset, yes, but that's not motive to commit a crime, so she's going to sacrifice all she's worked for? She's going to give all that up?


Translations for motive

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"motive." Synonyms.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.synonyms.com/synonym/motive>.

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