motive
noun
something that causes a person to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc.; incentive.
motiveless
-
a word derived from
motive.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We now understand, more clearly than in the 1950s, that the consequences of human action on a global scale are rather like Godzilla: huge, unknowable, motiveless and not easily stopped.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 3, 2023
Mr Blunt said: "This appears to be a completely motiveless, random, senseless, inexplicable incident."
From BBC ● May 16, 2022
Some resistance was more overtly political; the critic Elaine Showalter, on Twitter, decried a plotline of the “saintly academic hero tormented by motiveless malignity of his despicable wife and other monsters.”
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 11, 2019
Though Markos occasionally erupts into Iago-like utterances that suggest that he, too, is a creature of motiveless evil, we know why he’s bad.
From New York Times ● Jun. 14, 2013
I relate this occurrence, to show how motiveless such trespasses may be.
From Dealings with the Dead, Volume I (of 2) by A Sexton of the Old School
