motif
noun
a recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., especially in a literary, artistic, or musical work.
motifs
-
pluralof motif.plural
The grammatical form denoting more than one person, place, thing, or idea.
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 novelist explores narrative, making sense of themes, motifs and sensations to try to communicate about the complexity of a globe with some eight billion people in it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
More elaborate designs, including hatched bands, grids, and diamond-shaped motifs, also showed evidence of rotation, translation, repetition, and "embedding," i.e., the ability to build hierarchical levels of signs within the same surface.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026
So birds adapted for tropical forests use different acoustic building blocks, or motifs, to those from temperate regions.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
In this context, Ms. Fletcher argues, guns could be “domesticated” by being richly decorated with motifs inspired by ancient history and myth, incorporating both classical and Christian themes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
For after 1765 Copley freely adapted and combined motifs from different prints in his paintings, often disguising their origins so completely that we cannot be certain which they were.
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
