motivate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of motivate
Explanation
To give someone the incentive to act in a certain way is to motivate that person. If you give your dad a food-processor for his birthday, you might motivate him to help out with the cooking. The verb motivate means to prompt or incite. By giving speeches on college campuses across the country, John F. Kennedy motivated a lot of young people to join the Peace Corps in the early 1960s. People are not always motivated in positive ways, however. When a crime is described as racially motivated, it means the perpetrators picked their victim because of the color of his skin.
Vocabulary lists containing motivate
List 5
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Mother's Day Words: What Mothers Do
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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.
I didn't have anyone to motivate me, so I motivated myself.
From BBC • May 28, 2026
“If we can create some risk on the other side, hopefully we can motivate people to do the right thing.”
From Salon • May 27, 2026
Hospital director Srimant Kumar Mishra said the most difficult part is to motivate patients to be operated on.
From Barron's • May 27, 2026
Yet Zhu's findings suggest that these concerns can sometimes motivate employees to learn new skills and use AI more effectively to strengthen their careers.
From Science Daily • May 25, 2026
From McKissick, Fuller learned about strategy and, at least as important, about how to speak in a way that would move and motivate people.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
