All 4 Uses of
motive
in
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
- I had felt, seen, and heard enough, to read the characters, and question the motives, of those around me.†
Chpt 4 *motives = reasons for doing something
- My grandmother had a motive for inviting them.†
Chpt 22
- I now recollected that I had seen him manifest uneasiness, when people were on that side of the house, and I had at the time been puzzled to conjecture a motive for his actions.†
Chpt 29
- I accepted the explanation in silence; but she had told me that my child belonged to her daughter, and I suspected that her real motive was a fear of my conveying her property away from her.†
Chpt 33
Definitions:
-
(1)
(motive as in: What is her motive?) a reason for doing something
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Less commonly, motive can refer to something that causes motion in an inanimate object. Even less commonly, it can refer to a distinctive feature in music, art, or literature.