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Incentive vs Motive - What's the difference?

incentive | motive |

As nouns the difference between incentive and motive

is that incentive is something that motivates, rouses, or encourages while motive is an idea or communication that makes one want to act, especially from spiritual sources; a divine prompting.

As adjectives the difference between incentive and motive

is that incentive is inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action; stimulating while motive is causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move; as, a motive argument; motive power.

As a verb motive is

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

incentive

Noun

(en noun)
  • Something that motivates, rouses, or encourages.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}
  • A bonus or reward, often monetary, to work harder.
  • Antonyms

    * disincentive

    Derived terms

    * incentivise/incentivize, tax incentive

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action; stimulating.
  • * Dr. H. More
  • Competency is the most incentive to industry.
  • Serving to kindle or set on fire.
  • * Milton
  • Part incentive reed / Provide, pernicious with one touch of fire.

    motive

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) An idea or communication that makes one want to act, especially from spiritual sources; a divine prompting.
  • *, III.2.1.ii:
  • *:there's something in a woman beyond all human delight; a magnetic virtue, a charming quality, an occult and powerful motive .
  • 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.
  • * 1947 , (Malcolm Lowry), Under the Volcano :
  • Many of them at first seemed kind to him, but it turned out their motives were not entirely altruistic.
  • (obsolete, rare) A limb or other bodily organ that can move.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • (legal) Something which causes someone to want to commit a crime; a reason for criminal behaviour.
  • What would his motive be for burning down the cottage?
    No-one could understand why she had hidden the shovel; her motives were obscure at best.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1931, author=
  • , chapter=10/6, title= Death Walks in Eastrepps , passage=“Why should Eldridge commit murder?
  • (architecture, fine arts) A motif.
  • (music) A motif; a theme or subject, especially one that is central to the work or often repeated.
  • If you listen carefully, you can hear the flutes mimicking the cello motive .

    Synonyms

    * (incentive ) motivation * (creative works ) motif

    Verb

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

    * motivate

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move; as, a motive argument; motive power.
  • * 1658 , Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus , Folio Society 2007, p. 195:
  • In the motive parts of animals may be discovered mutuall proportions; not only in those of Quadrupeds, but in the thigh-bone, legge, foot-bone, and claws of Birds.
  • Relating to motion and/or to its cause
  • Synonyms

    * moving * (relating to motion) motional

    Anagrams

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