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Motive vs Derive - What's the difference?

motive | derive |

As verbs the difference between motive and derive

is that motive is while derive is .

As a noun derive is

drift.

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

    External links

    * * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    derive

    English

    Verb

    (deriv)
  • To obtain or receive (something) from something else.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz
    • , title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
  • (logic) To deduce (a conclusion) by reasoning.
  • (linguistics) To find the derivation of (a word or phrase).
  • (chemistry) To create (a compound) from another by means of a reaction.
  • To originate or stem (from).
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
    • , author=Robert M. Pringle, volume=100, issue=1, page=31, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= How to Be Manipulative , passage=As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.}}
  • To turn the course of (water, etc.); to divert and distribute into subordinate channels.
  • * (and other bibliographic details) Holland
    • For fear it [water] choke up the pitsthey [the workman] derive it by other drains.

    Related terms

    * derivation * derivative

    External links

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----