Motive vs. Motif

Motivenoun

(obsolete) An idea or communication that makes one want to act, especially from spiritual sources; a divine prompting.

Motivenoun

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.

Motivenoun

A limb or other bodily organ that can move.

Motivenoun

(legal) Something which causes someone to want to commit a crime; a reason for criminal behaviour.

Motivenoun

A motif.

Motivenoun

(music) A motif; a theme or subject, especially one that is central to the work or often repeated.

Motiveverb

(transitive) To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.

Motiveadjective

Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move

Motiveadjective

Relating to motion and/or to its cause

Motivenoun

That which moves; a mover.

Motivenoun

That which incites to action; anything prompting or exciting to choise, or moving the will; cause; reason; inducement; object; motivation{2}.

Motivenoun

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.

Motivenoun

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.

Motiveadjective

Causing motion; having power to move, or tending to move; as, a motive argument; motive power.

Motiveverb

To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.

Motivenoun

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;

Motivenoun

a theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music

Motiveadjective

causing or able to cause motion;

Motiveadjective

impelling to action;

Motifnoun

A recurring or dominant element; a theme.

Motifnoun

(music) A short melodic passage that is repeated in several parts of a work.

Motifnoun

A decorative figure that is repeated in a design or pattern.

Motifnoun

(dressmaking) A decorative appliqué design or figure, as of lace or velvet, used in trimming.

Motifnoun

(crystallography) The physical object or objects repeated at each point of a lattice. Usually atoms or molecules.

Motifnoun

(chess) A basic element of a move in terms of why the piece moves and how it supports the fulfilment of a stipulation.

Motifnoun

(biochemistry) In a nucleotide or amino-acid sequence, pattern that is widespread and has, or is conjectured to have, a biological significance.

Motifnoun

Motive.

Motifnoun

In literature and the fine arts, a salient feature or element of a composition or work; esp., the theme, or central or dominant feature;

Motifnoun

A decorative appliqué design or figure, as of lace or velvet, used in trimming; also, a repeated design.

Motifnoun

a design that consists of recurring shapes or colors

Motifnoun

a theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music

Motifnoun

a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work;