Motive vs Motile - What's the difference?
motive | motile |
(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 :
(obsolete, rare) A limb or other bodily organ that can move.
(legal) Something which causes someone to want to commit a crime; a reason for criminal behaviour.
* {{quote-book, year=1931, author=
, chapter=10/6, title= (architecture, fine arts) A motif.
(music) A motif; a theme or subject, especially one that is central to the work or often repeated.
To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.
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:
Relating to motion and/or to its cause
(biology) having the power to move spontaneously
* {{quote-book
, date = 1993-05-06
, title = A Dead Man in Deptford
, first = Anthony
, last = Burgess
, authorlink = Anthony Burgess
, location = London
, publisher = Hutchinson
, isbn = 9780091779771
, ol = 1047075M
, passage = It seemed to him that, if there were a Holy Trinity as the churches taught, this must be unified through a manner of capillary action, Father merging into Son and both into Holy Ghost. So God is motile as the blood is.
}}
* {{quote-video
, date = 2010-01-21
, episode = The Proof in the Pudding
, title =
, season = 5
, number = 12
, at = 1:27
, people = (Emily Deschanel)
, role =
, passage = And even if they use condoms, Wendell is young. His sperm is likely to be extremely motile .
}}
(psychology) of or relating to those mental images that arise from the sensations of bodily movement and position
As a verb motive
is .As an adjective motile is
(biology) having the power to move spontaneously.motive
English
Noun
(en noun)- Many of them at first seemed kind to him, but it turned out their motives were not entirely altruistic.
- (Shakespeare)
- 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.
Death Walks in Eastrepps, passage=“Why should Eldridge commit murder?
- If you listen carefully, you can hear the flutes mimicking the cello motive .
Synonyms
* (incentive ) motivation * (creative works ) motifVerb
Synonyms
* motivateAdjective
(-)- 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.
