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.

A desperate sense of humor, clutching at whatever pleasing it could find in the sullen array of 'social protest' and of drab 'American scene,' seems to have actuated the prize-awarding jurors.

From Time Magazine Archive

Some vagrant sense of honour seemed to have actuated him so far, but never yet had he known such a motive to last for long.

From Charles Rex by Dell, Ethel M. (Ethel May)

Whatever the quality of your enjoyment or happiness may be, you have patterned it by your life motive by the spirit in which you have worked, by the principles which have actuated you.

From Pushing to the Front by Marden, Orison Swett

The mere desire to make a place for Enid might not have actuated Werner, granting he was the guilty man.

From The Film Mystery by Reeve, Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin)

It would be glorious to be a voice working in secret and free from all those personal motives that have actuated the best.

From Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1 by Huxley, Thomas Henry