All 17 Uses
motive
in
Native Son
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- and: It was conjectured that perhaps the family had information to the effect that Erlone knew of the whereabouts of Miss Dalton, and certain police officials assigned that as the motive behind the family's request for the radical's release.†
Book 2motive = reason (for doing something)
- But he had to stand here until that picture came back, that motive, that driving desire to escape the law.†
Book 2 *
- I'm trying to establish a motive for the murder of that innocent girl!†
Book 3
- And what motive could Max have in helping?†
Book 3
- And with but a few minutes between him and the beginning of judgment, the obscure longing to possess the thing which Max had dimly evoked in him was still a motive.†
Book 3
- "He did not discuss the motive for Bigger Thomas" crime because he could not.†
Book 3
- What motive actuated Bigger Thomas?†
Book 3
- There was no motive as motive is understood under our laws today, Your Honor.†
Book 3
- There was no motive as motive is understood under our laws today, Your Honor.†
Book 3
- He murdered Mary Dalton accidentally, without thinking, without plan, without conscious motive.†
Book 3
- If it was murder, then what was the motive?†
Book 3
- The truth is, Your Honor, there was no motive as you and I understand motives within the scope of our laws today.†
Book 3
- The truth is, Your Honor, there was no motive as you and I understand motives within the scope of our laws today.†
Book 3motives = reasons for doing something
- The counsel for the defendant, with characteristic Communistic cunning, boasted that I could not supply a motive for the crimes of this beast.†
Book 3motive = reason (for doing something)
- Well, Your Honor, I shall disappoint him, for I shall divulge the motive.†
Book 3
- There is your motive and the vile circumstances under which it was conceived!†
Book 3
- He felt that his making the priest stand away from him and wonder about his motives for refusing to accept the consolations of religion was a sort of recognition of his personality on a plane other than that which the priest was ordinarily willing to make.†
Book 3motives = reasons for doing something
Definitions:
-
(1)
(motive as in: What is her motive?) a reason for doing something
-
(2)
(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.