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Keep "leitmotiv" when the sentence already sounds natural, when a synonym would add unintended emphasis, or when readers need the most familiar wording. A synonym should clarify or sharpen the message, not simply make the sentence look more varied.
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Choose a synonym only if it keeps the core idea of "leitmotiv" intact in the sentence you are editing.
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Review note: Synonym lists are ranked with lexical data and reviewed for practical writing value. Use the comparison notes, sentence evidence, and source labels together; a high-ranking synonym can still be wrong when the audience, register, or grammar changes.
After choosing a replacement for "leitmotiv", read the sentence once for meaning and once for rhythm. The best synonym should feel natural in the full sentence, not only accurate in a word list.
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3 total sentences available.
In the domain of purely instrumental music, to which leitmotive are perfectly adapted in the realization of ‘programme music’, the earliest examples are to be found in the Symphonie Fantastique of Berlioz, where what he terms idée fixe is used in the manner of a ‘leitmotiv’.
Source: wiktionary
A further application of the rhymes and repetitions is to be seen in Queneau’s use of leitmotive, whereby his texts are pervaded by objects which, again, serve to indicate the deliberate organisation underlying the surface of the narrative.
Source: wiktionary
While Pentecostalism differs both in doctrine and pneumatology from the Afro-Christian sects, its indigenisation in Jamaica has meant that the leitmotive of black folk belief reinvigorated the movement, which had been largely "de-Africanised" by white Pentecostals, and thus restored many of the perceptions and themes which had been present at the birth of the Pentecostalism in Los Angeles.
Source: wiktionary
Closest matches include figure, guiding motif, leitmotif, motif, motive.
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