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{%type%} Definitions

WordNet 3.0Copyright Princeton University
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Short "hint"

A cause for doing something.

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Usage examples (38)
  • The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.
  • A motive force
  • I use it here to mean a doctrinaire Marxist whose main motive is hostility to the Stalin regime.
  • The only people that the "motive" is relevant to is the police when looking for a suspect.
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Tutoring comment
  • The red and purple flower "motif" (a figure in a design) of the wallpaper was his "motive" (the inner drive that causes one to act) for moving out of the house.
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