Motivation

//ˈməʊ.tɪ.veɪ.ʃən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Willingness of action especially in behavior.
  2. 2
    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 wordnet
  3. 3
    The action of motivating.
  4. 4
    the act of motivating; providing incentive wordnet
  5. 5
    Something which motivates.
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    the condition of being motivated wordnet
  2. 7
    An incentive or reason for doing something.
  3. 8
    A research rating that measures how the rational and emotional elements of a commercial affect consumer intention to consider, visit, or buy something.

    "The motivation scores showed that 65% of people wanted to visit our website to learn more about the offer after watching the commercial."

Synonyms

All synonyms
activationactivityactuationanimationaptitudeaptness

Example

More examples

"Without motivation, nothing can be achieved."

Etymology

From French motivation. Morphologically motivate + -ion.

Related phrases

extrinsic motivationintrinsic motivationletter of motivation

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.