Motive

·noun That which moves; a mover.

II. Motive ·vt To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to Move.

III. Motive ·adj Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move; as, a motive argument; motive power.

IV. Motive ·noun That which incites to action; anything prompting or exciting to choise, or moving the will; cause; reason; inducement; object.

V. Motive ·noun 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.

VI. Motive ·noun 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.