All 17 Uses
motive
in
Black Boy
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- The entire family became kind and forgiving, but I knew the motives that prompted their change and it drove me an even greater emotional distance from them.†
Chpt 1.4motives = reasons for doing something
- Prompted by some obscure motive, he would lure his victims into this room and then throw an electric switch.†
Chpt 1.5 *motive = reason (for doing something)
- I had never been able to talk to others, and I had to guess at their meanings and motives.†
Chpt 1.5motives = reasons for doing something
- I had not been honest from deliberate motives, but being dishonest had simply never occurred to me.†
Chpt 1.10
- I continued to work, wondering what motives were prompting him.†
Chpt 1.12
- We two black boys, each working for ten dollars a week, stood staring at each other, thinking, comparing the motives of the absent white man, each asking himself if he could believe the other.†
Chpt 1.12
- It was not until I had left the delicatessen job that I saw how grossly I had misread the motives and attitudes of Mr. Hoffman and his wife†
Chpt 2.15
- I tried to fathom their motives, but I could detect no condescension in them.†
Chpt 2.18
- But I still doubted their motives.†
Chpt 2.18
- The membership had now begun to distrust the party's motives.†
Chpt 2.18
- I did not know that the notes I was taking of Ross's life were being discussed by the local Communist leaders, that my motives were already being questioned; and no doubt my rash words did not help any.†
Chpt 2.19
- Simple motives took on sinister colors.†
Chpt 2.19
- The Communists who doubted my motives did not know these boys, their twisted dreams, their all-too-clear destinies; and I doubted if I would ever be able to convey to them the tragedy I saw here.†
Chpt 2.19
- But I soon learned, learned how simple were my motives, how trusting was my attitude, how wide and innocent were my eyes, as round and open and dew-wet as morning-glories ....The next night two Negro Communists called at my home.†
Chpt 2.19
- "Your story does not agree with what Nealson says," they said, revealing the motive of their visit.†
Chpt 2.19motive = reason (for doing something)
- I had always felt that the possibility was there, but always I was not quite sure of the motives of the people with whom I worked and they never seemed quite sure of mine.†
Chpt 2.19motives = reasons for doing something
- That night I tossed sleepless, trying to imagine what had been in Alma Zetkin's mind, what she had been told, what were her motives.†
Chpt 2.20
Definitions:
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(1)
(motive as in: What is her motive?) a reason for doing something
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(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.