Motto
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A personal slogan.
"You have to be in it to win it — that's my motto."
- 2 a favorite saying of a group, organization or individual wordnet
- 3 A sentence, phrase, or word, forming part of an heraldic achievement.
"‘Gentlemen, I can tell you what the new queen will take as her motto. It is Bound to Obey and Serve.’"
- 4 A sentence, phrase, or word, prefixed to an essay, discourse, chapter, canto, or the like, suggestive of its subject matter; a short, suggestive expression of a guiding principle; a maxim.
"It was the motto of a bishop eminent for his piety and good works, ... Serve God, and be cheerful."
- 5 A paper packet containing a sweetmeat, cracker, etc., together with a scrap of paper bearing a motto. obsolete
- 1 To compose mottos. intransitive
"The singularity of his epigraphic strategy notwithstanding, Emerson does not draw attention to his own mottoing. One exchange suggests that his practice was a convention imposed from without."
Example
More examples"His motto is "Plain living and high thinking.""
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian motto (“a word, a saying”), from Latin muttum (“a mutter, a grunt”), late 16th c. Doublet of mot.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.