motivo

Forms

motivo m (plural motivos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin motīvus (“relating to movement”), a learned word of the 15th century.^[2][3][1][4] In Medieval Latin the adjective meant “moving, prompting”, and its neuter motivum was used as a noun for “motive, reason”.^[5] The Latin adjective is made from mōtus (“moved”), the past participle of moveō (“to move”), with the suffix -īvus.^[6][1]

The same Latin adjective is the source of Catalan motiu, Portuguese motivo, Italian motivo and French motif.^[7][8][9] In French the noun is the masculine of an adjective borrowed from Latin in 1314, used as a noun from 1370–1372.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH finds the first records in the Corbacho and in Juan de Mena, then in Nebrija;^[11][12] Segura Munguía dates the word 1438, and DICCA-XV has a record of 1417.^[2][11][12] Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary (c. 1495) renders it with Latin causa movens “moving cause” and propositum “purpose”: the sense was already “the reason that moves someone to act”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) defines it as the end and design a person conceives in deciding to do something, and derives it from Latin motu, “because the end is what moves”.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades gives the noun as the cause, occasion or reason that moves someone, the rare adjective “that moves” with a line of Lope de Vega, and the phrase de su motivo “of one's own free will”, Latin motu proprio.^[14] The phrase had reached the Americas by 1564, when a Mexican text has de motivo “of their own accord”.^[15]

In the 19th century the word took the musical sense “theme of a composition”: Domínguez illustrates it with a symphony on motifs from I Puritani, and Salvá defines it as the first idea of a piece, which dominates the whole.^[16][17] Baralt (1855) objected that this motivo was the French motif and proposed tema instead; the Academy admitted the musical sense in 1869.^[18][19] In French the musical sense dates from 1703.^[10] Today the word also names a repeated feature of a work of art, and a decorative figure (motivo decorativo).^[3][20]

In Chile the plural meant women's affected airs and fussiness, and the Chilean purist Román objected to con motivo de in the titles of speeches, preferring con ocasión de.^[21][22]

Timeline

• 1417 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[12]
• 1438 – the Corbacho, the first record in the DCECH.^[2][11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it causa movens, propositum.^[12]
• 1562 – the first record from the Americas, in Yucatán.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin motu.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records de su motivo “of one's own will”.^[14]
• 1846 – Domínguez and Salvá record the musical sense.^[16][17]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary adds the musical sense.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the phrase de mi, tu, su… motivo propio and an etymology from Latin motum.^[23]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Moving, able to move: una fuerza motiva.^[3][24]

Noun

1. A cause or reason that moves someone to do something; a motive: No tenía ningún motivo para mentirnos.^[3][20][1]
2. (art) A characteristic feature repeated in a work or a group of works; a decorative motif: un jarrón con motivos vegetales.^[3][20][24]
3. (music) A short melodic idea repeated and developed through a composition.^[24][20][25]
4. A theme or thematic element of a literary work.^[3]
5. (Chile, in the plural) Affected, finicky airs.^[21][22]

Word family

• motivar
• motivador

Related words

• mover
• motor
• moción
• emotivo
• Latin motīvus
• French motif

Usage notes

Con motivo de introduces the reason or occasion of something: Viajó a Lisboa con motivo de una boda.^[20][16] The phrase de mi (tu, su…) motivo propio means “of my (your, his…) own free will”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 169
3. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. motivo
4. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. motivo
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. motivo
7. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. motiu
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. motivo
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 476
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b c Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 461
12. ^ a b c d e Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. motivo
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1151
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 618
15. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
16. ^ a b c Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1229
17. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 735
18. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 450
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 524
20. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
21. ^ a b Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 555
22. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 308
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 722
24. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
25. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org