Adjacent Words

motivation definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

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; "we did not understand his motivation"; "he acted with the best of motives" [syn: motivation, motive, need]
2: the condition of being motivated; "his motivation was at a high level"
3: the act of motivating; providing incentive [syn: motivation, motivating]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1873 1. a. the act or process of motivating b. the condition of being motivated 2. a motivating force, stimulus, or influence ; incentive, drive • motivational adjective • motivationally adverb

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Motivate Mo"ti*vate, v. t. [imp. & p. p. -vated; p. pr. & vb. n. -vating.] [From Motive, n.] To provide with a motive; to move; impel; induce; incite. -- Mo`ti*va"tion, n. --William James.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(motivations) Your motivation for doing something is what causes you to want to do it. Money is my motivation... The timing of the attack, and its motivations, are unknown. N-COUNT: usu with poss

Moby Thesaurus

activity, actuation, animation, aptitude, aptness, brightness, catalyst, cleverness, direction, docility, dynamics, educability, facility, going, impetus, impressionability, impulse, incentive, incitation, incitement, influence, inner-direction, instigation, intelligence, kinematics, kinesipathy, kinesis, kinesitherapy, kinetics, malleability, mobilization, moldability, motion, move, movement, moving, other-direction, plasticity, pliability, prompting, quickness, readiness, receptivity, restlessness, running, spur, stimulant, stimulation, stir, stirring, susceptibility, teachability, teachableness, trainableness, unrest, velocity, willingness