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motivational

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,772 of 15,258leans written

Motivational means meant to make people want to act. A motivational speaker, motivational poster, motivational quote.

The word has picked up a faint smell of the industry around it, and motivational poster is now used mockingly as often as not. The research finding that has held up is that motivation follows action more often than it precedes it — starting is what produces the wanting. Note motivate, motive.

Definitions of motivational

  1. 1adjectivemotivationalMeant to make people want to act.B2+

    “The coach gave a motivational speech at half-time, and the team came back to win.”

motivational is a quality of encouraging.

Where it comes from

  1. German

    Motivation

  2. French

    motivation

  3. English

    motivation

  4. English, today

    motivational

From motivation + -al. motivation comes from motive + -ation. From motive + ation, probably after French motivation and German Motivation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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motivational in the wild

  • The direction of a motivational state is shaped by the goal it aims to achieve.

    Motivation

  • Incentive salience is the attractive form of motivational salience that causes approach behavior, and is associated with operant reinforcement, desirable outcomes, and pleasurable stimuli.

    Motivational salience

  • Wayne Walter Dyer was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker.

    Wayne Dyer

  • A motivational speaker (or inspirational speaker) is a speaker who makes speeches intended to motivate or inspire an audience.

    Motivational speaker

  • Louise Lynn Hay was an American motivational author and professional speaker.

    Louise Hay

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the Motivation family

motivationmotivational

motivational — used about once every 5,163 pages · #9,772 · point at the bar for the others

  • motive
  • motivate