Synonym: basis, cause, ground, motivation, prompting, reason. Similar words: motivate, motion, promotion, give notice, active, native, incentive, relative. Meaning: ['məʊtɪv] 
n. 1. the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior 2. a theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music. adj. 1. causing or able to cause motion 2. impelling to action.
n. 1. the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior 2. a theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music. adj. 1. causing or able to cause motion 2. impelling to action. 
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121. Business leaders are driven by the profit motive; government leaders are driven by the desire to get reelected.
122. But the motive for following a composite career is often not purely financial.
123. Investigators have yet to establish a motive, but a failed robbery attempt is a likely reason, Moen said.
124. Clarity appears in those self-directed exhortations of the novelist to elucidate Raskolnikov's motive for murder.
125. In other words, aggressive fantasy may suggest or stimulate aggressive behaviour, rather than drain off the motive to behave aggressively.
126. Police were also seeking a motive for an attempted pipe bomb attack on a house in Ballymoney, Co Antrim.
127. We must beware of hysterical solutions to complex problems urged by people whose real motive is often hatred of industry and capitalism.
127. Sentencedict.com is a online sentence dictionary, on which you can find excellent sentences for a large number of words.
128. The persuasive power of paternalism supplies the motive for this step to be taken.
129. Chief Superintendent Louis Munn said police were still trying to piece together exactly what happened and establish a motive for the attack.
130. Her main motive was simple: to retrieve the ring and thereby enable Rick to make peace with his family.
131. The second motive is a mixture of revenge and reproach.
132. An external motive can never inspire you. It will only motivate you to move, but you will soon stop. Seek inspiration! RVM 
133. If a national asylum were provided there would be no motive for concealment.
134. About the motive for killing him Place seemed less clear.
135. Richard Miles was known to smoke cannabis but police don't believe such drug use was a motive for murder.
136. Robbery was believed to be the motive for the killing.
137. Police would not speculate on a motive, except to say that Avanesian had a long-running dispute with his wife.
138. Police say the motive for the killing was an unpaid drug debt.
139. The motive behind much late nineteenth-century visiting was to put the social classes back in touch with one another.
140. She went on record to reassure parents that no children were taken with a revenge motive.
141. This was no crime without a motive, McGettigan told the jury in opening arguments.
142. Unbeknown to you the real motive is to question you in order to undermine your position.
143. Consequently, the calendar ceased to be the primary motive for celestial observation.
144. It was clear Mrs Baggley was, in her own way, making comments about a possible motive for Gray's murder.
145. The old formula distinguishing the motive to instruct or to amuse is of no service.
146. Even ten years later, he felt the sting of the rebuke, the motive for which he still fails to understand.
147. There was considerable debate within this school about the overlapping concepts of motive, determining tendency and set.
148. The question is the charge of gas, exploded in the cylinder head, which is the motive force of every piston-stroke.
149. But the motive behind her achievement was not self-interest alone, nor the desire to carry aloft the banner of feminism.
150. The transactions motive simply means that firms must hold cash in order to conduct normal business transactions.
More similar words: motivate, motion, promotion, give notice, active, native, incentive, relative, actively, narrative, objective, sensitive, deceptive, detective, executive, cognitive, supportive, cooperative, innovative, diminutive, collective, productive, distinctive, attractive, protective, perspective, relatively, initiative, effectively, alternative.