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motive

noun · verb · adjective

Simple meaning

Something which causes someone to want to commit a crime.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

mohtiv

Say the bold part a little louder.

US recording
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈmoʊtɪv

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. law

    Something which causes someone to want to commit a crime; a reason for criminal behaviour.

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

  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.

verb

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

adjective

  1. Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move

  2. Relating to motion and/or to its cause

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Something which causes someone to want to commit a crime; a reason for criminal behaviour.

Used this way, motive is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.

Heard in a sentence
“No-one could understand why she had hidden the shovel; her motives were obscure at best.”
Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Clinical and detached

Where it naturally appears

  • Law/legal
  • Government/politics
  • Academic writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Causing

motive powermotive forcereal motive

Other combinations

profit motiveprimary motive

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • motive powernounCompound term

    The power or ability to move.

  • ethical motivenounCompound term

    Motivation based on ideas of right and wrong.

  • irrational motivenounCompound term

    A motivation that is inconsistent with reason or logic.

  • rational motivenounCompound term

    A motive that can be defended by reasoning or logical argument.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: something which causes someone to want to commit a crime

motivation

verb

Sense: to prompt or incite by a motive or motives

motivate

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.