motivation
noun
Simple meaning
An incentive or reason for doing something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mohtuhvayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
moʊtəˈveɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An incentive or reason for doing something.
Willingness of action especially in behavior.
The act of motivating; providing incentive
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.”
The action of motivating.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An incentive or reason for doing something.
Used this way, motivation is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use motivation
- “We did not understand his motivation.”noun
- “His motivation was at a high level.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Of or relating to motivation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.