motive

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An emotion, desire, physiological need, or similar impulse that acts as an incitement to action.
2. n. A motif in art, literature, or music.
3. adj. Causing or able to cause motion: motive power.
4. adj. Impelling to action: motive pleas.
5. adj. Of or constituting an incitement to action.
6. v. To motivate.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Causing motion; having power to move some one or something; tending to produce motion.
2. Moving or impelling force in a figurative sense.
3. That which moves, as a locomotive; in railroading, the locomotives collectively of a railroad: as, the super-intendent of the motive power.
4. n. A mental state or force which induces an act of volition; a determining impulse: specifically, a desire for something; a gratification contemplated as the final cause of a certain action of the one desiring it. The term motive is also loosely applied to the object desired. The noun motive, in this sense, was brought into general use by writers influenced by Hobbes (though he uses the adjective only), who held that men's actions are always governed by the strongest motive, and denied the freedom of the will. “It is now, however, in common literary and conversational use, apart from any theory.
5. n. The design or object one has in any action; intention; purpose; the ideal object of desire.
6. n. One who or that which is the cause of something; an originator.
7. n. Movement.
8. n. Prevailing design. Specifically
9. n. . Motion; proposition.
10. n. Synonyms Motive, Reason, Inducement, Incentive, Impulse, consideration, prompting, stimulus. The differences among the first five of these words are suggested by the derivations. A motive is that which moves one to act, addressing the will, as though directly, and determining the choice; it is the common philosophical term, and may be collective: as, the whole field of motive. A reason is that which addresses the rational nature by way of argument for either belief or choice. An inducement leads one on by his desire for good: as, to hold out an additional inducement. An incentive urges one on like martial music. An impulse drives one on, but is transitory.
11. To act on as a motive, or with the force of a motive; prompt; instigate.

Wiktionary

1. n. An incentive to act; a reason for doing something; anything that prompted a choice of action.
2. n. A motif; a theme or subject, especially one that is central to the work or often repeated.
3. v. transitive To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.
4. adj. Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move; as, a motive argument; motive power.
5. adj. Relating to motion and/or to its cause

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete That which moves; a mover.
2. n. That which incites to action; anything prompting or exciting to choise, or moving the will; cause; reason; inducement; object; motivation{2}.
3. n. (Mus.) The theme or subject; a leading phrase or passage which is reproduced and varied through the course of a comor a movement; a short figure, or melodic germ, out of which a whole movement is develpoed. See also Leading motive, under Leading.
4. n. (Fine Arts) That which produces conception, invention, or creation in the mind of the artist in undertaking his subject; the guiding or controlling idea manifested in a work of art, or any part of one.
5. adj. Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move.
6. v. To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. 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. n. a theme that is repeated or elaborated in a piece of music
3. adj. causing or able to cause motion
4. n. a design or figure that consists of recurring shapes or colors, as in architecture or decoration
5. adj. impelling to action