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noun.motive

42 results

• life
  a motive for living
• rational motive
  a motive that can be defended by reasoning or logical argument
• ground, reason
  a rational motive for a belief or action
• occasion
  reason
• score, account
  grounds
• why, wherefore
  the cause or intention underlying an action or situation, especially in the phrase `the whys and wherefores'
• inducement, incentive, motivator
  a positive motivational influence
• moral force, dynamic
  an efficient incentive
• deterrence, disincentive
  a negative motivational influence
• irrational motive
  a motivation that is inconsistent with reason or logic
• impulse, urge
  an instinctive motive
• abience
  (psychology) an urge to withdraw or avoid a situation or an object
• adience
  (psychology) an urge to accept or approach a situation or an object
• death instinct, death wish, Thanatos
  (psychoanalysis) an unconscious urge to die
• irrational impulse
  a strong spontaneous and irrational motivation
• compulsion, irresistible impulse
  an urge to do or say something that might be better left undone or unsaid
• passion, mania, cacoethes
  an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action
• agromania
  an intense desire to be alone or out in the open
• dipsomania, alcoholism, potomania
  an intense persistent desire to drink alcoholic beverages to excess
• egomania
  an intense and irresistible love for yourself and concern for your own needs
• kleptomania
  an irresistible impulse to steal in the absence of any economic motive
• logorrhea, logomania
  pathologically excessive (and often incoherent) talking
• possession, monomania
  a mania restricted to one thing or idea
• necrophilia, necrophilism, necromania
  an irresistible sexual attraction to dead bodies
• phaneromania
  an irresistible desire to pick at superficial body parts (as in obsessive nail-biting)
• pyromania
  an uncontrollable desire to set fire to things
• trichotillomania
  an irresistible urge to pull out your own hair
• wanderlust, itchy feet
  very strong or irresistible impulse to travel
• compulsion, obsession
  an irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions, even against your will
• onomatomania
  obsession with a particular word which the person uses repeatedly or which intrudes into consciousness
• morality, ethics, ethical motive, morals
  motivation based on ideas of right and wrong
• hedonism
  the pursuit of pleasure as a matter of ethical principle
• conscience, scruples, moral sense, sense of right and wrong
  motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions
• wee small voice, small voice, voice of conscience
  an inner voice that judges your behavior
• sense of shame, sense of duty
  a motivating awareness of ethical responsibility
• Inner Light, Light, Light Within, Christ Within
  a divine presence believed by Quakers to enlighten and guide the soul
• psychic energy, mental energy
  an actuating force or factor
• provocation, incitation, incitement
  something that incites or provokes
• signal
  any incitement to action
• libidinal energy
  (psychoanalysis) psychic energy produced by the libido
• charge, cathexis
  (psychoanalysis) the libidinal energy invested in some idea or person or object
• acathexis
  (psychoanalysis) a lack of cathexis