motifn.
/məʊˈtiːf/, U.S. /moʊˈtif/ I. Senses relating to themes or emblems.
1.
a. Art and Architecture. A (usually recurrent) feature of a composition, esp. a distinctive or salient one; the structural principle or dominant idea of a work; an object or group of objects forming a distinct element of a design; any small design or symbol. Also: a particular type of subject for artistic treatment.
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > work of art > [noun] > motif
motive1842
motif1848
art form1887
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of ideation > topic, subject-matter > materials of topic > [noun] > distinctive element
motif1848
motive1893
trope1975
1848 A. Jameson Sacred & Legendary Art (1850) 87 The motif is simple and not easily mistaken.
1850 Ecclesiologist 11 121 Regular stalls would not have suited the motif of the arrangement.
1881 Cornhill Mag. Mar. 309 The main motif of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range.
1883 A. H. Church Precious Stones 29 Arrangements of precious stones in which the leading motif is either identity, or seriation, or contrast.
1935 ‘E. Queen’ Spanish Cape Myst. iii There were beach umbrellas over saucy round tables in a prevailing motif of Spanish reds and yellows.
1958 R. K. Narayan Guide v. 73 The wall-painting represented episodes from the epics and mythology, and all kinds of patterns and motifs.
1970 N. Pevsner Cambridgeshire (Buildings of Eng.) (ed. 2) 94 So Hawksmoor had a second model made, with..a simple lunette window..as the central motif between them.
1990 Do it Yourself Apr. 11 (caption) The Cottage Garden suite from Armitage Shanks has an attractive motif on the sanitaryware.
b. Needlework. An emblem or pattern worked in embroidery or other stitching on fabric, clothing, etc.; (also) any small picture used as a decorative device on textiles.
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > parts of clothing > [noun] > trimmings or ornamentation > other
jace1399
loopa1475
shakers1506
aglet1530
nerve1531
pipe1533
targeting1563
pinion1583
pinioning1597
tzitzit1618
loop-lace1632
button1671
tip1681
fal-lal1703
falbala1705
furbelow1706
jewelling1718
weeper1724
pompom1748
chiffons1765
foliage-trimming1818
mancheron1822
piping1825
manchette1835
patte1835
streamer1838
waterfall1841
paillette1843
brandenburgs1873
motif1882
patch1884
smocking1888
jockey1896
strapping1898
steel1899
sparklet1902
slotting1923
1882 S. F. A. Caulfeild & B. C. Saward Dict. Needlework 351/1 Motifs. A French term, used to distinguish the pattern of a piece of Embroidery from the groundwork or material.
1911 E. Ferber Buttered Side Down 119 There's one [blouse] you positively must see. Hand-embroidered, Irish motifs, and eyeleted from soup to nuts, and only eight-fifty.
1976 D. Storey Saville (1978) iv. xiv. 335 On the front of her beret was the single stork motif of Bletchley's school.
1988 Gender & Society 2 43 The male variant snaps from left to right, has a pointed collar and a football motif, [etc.].
1990 Fashion Forecast Internat. Sept. 124/1 Multicolour motifs on cotton jersey make Naf-Naf's bra and boxer set.
1992 M. Margetts Classic Crafts 15/1 Textile makers initially painted their designs onto fabric, then introduced small printing blocks which made it possible to repeat certain motifs more quickly.
c. Lacemaking. An individual element of the design of lace (such as a flower or leaf), esp. one made separately and subsequently joined to the ground or sewn on a garment; = sprig n.2 3d. Also (in extended use): any small fabric shape used as an appliqué.
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the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > textile fabric or an article of textile fabric > textile fabric > textile fabric manufactured in specific way > [noun] > consisting of loops or looped stitches > lace > pillow or bobbin > detached piece of
sprig1811
motif1888
1888 A. S. Cole tr. E. Lefébure Embroidery & Lace ii. iii. 289 These [scrolls] lacked the rich reliefs which abounded in the Venetian needlepoint designs of similar motifs.
1897 Westm. Gaz. 26 Aug. 3/2 Motifs, braces, epaulettes,..may be created from bold patterned guipure lace.
1906 Times 4 May 10/2 The skirt was bordered..with large jetted lace motifs.
1907 L. A. Tebbs Art of Bobbin Lace 37 These dainty little motifs form pretty ornaments for hats, blouses, etc., or..make a handsome border for collars.
1920 Amer. Woman Aug. 21/1 The motifs, four in number, are connected by lines of cording.
1979 E. Luxton Technique Honiton Lace 107 Four-sepal raised poppy..is worked similarly to the previous motif.
1983 P. Earnshaw Bobbin & Needle Laces iii. 31 These laces are still continuous since, in each piece, ground and motifs are made from the same threads... Another means of acceleration is to make the design motifs self-contained so that..all the separate motifs have to be joined by a ground before a lace is created.
2. Music. A short, usually recurrent, melodic or rhythmic unit; = figure n. 24. Also: a leitmotif. Occasionally: = subject n. 16 (now rare). Cf. motive n. 8, motivo n.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > piece of music > section of piece of music > [noun] > theme > motive
motivo1786
motif1849
motive1861
1849 Godey's Lady's Bk. Oct. 295 La Fete Nuptiale; brilliant variations on the motif ‘Ah! would that happy day were near’, from Linda di Chamounix. Any piece founded on this beautiful air must be beautiful, and the composer has done himself and his subject justice.
1880 G. Grove Dict. Music II. 377/1 Motif (Germ. Motiv), a word..in process of naturalization into English, and which has no less than three distinct meanings..1st, the German word originally means what we call ‘figure’, that is, a short group of notes..; 2nd, it is used as a synonym for Subject..; 3rd, as equivalent to, and an abbreviation of, Leit-Motiv.
1882 A. Edwardes Ballroom Repent. I. 189 I feel original. I have got hold of a motif! Oh, if we had..a sheet of scored paper!
a1902 F. Norris Pit (1903) vii. 250 These long, slow rhythms, tortured, languishing, really dying. It reminds one of ‘Phèdre’..; and Wagner has the same. You find it again in Isolde's motif continually.
1916 J. G. Fletcher Goblins & Pagodas Pref. p. xv The new subject-matter of Wagner's music-dramas, of an immeasurably higher order than the usual libretto, created a new form of music, based on motifs, not melodies.
1978 Gramophone Aug. 329/1 With steady tempi, the crispest possible articulation (the anapaestic motif of the Scherzo never so cleanly attacked).., it stands among the most direct..readings of the Symphony yet recorded.
1986 Music Teacher May 39/3 The Brahmsian characteristics are so clear, the motifs, the harmonic shifts.
3.
a. Literary Criticism. A particular subject for imaginative treatment, esp. an incident, situation, ethical problem, etc., embodying a central idea that informs a work; a recurrent theme, subject, or image.
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society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > fiction > [noun] > plot > motif
motif1857
archetype1957
1857 C. Kingsley Two Years Ago I. vi. 161 I owe you a debt, sir, for having furnished me with one of the most striking ‘motifs’ I ever had.
1877 Internat. Rev. Jan. 73 Having endeavored to discover the motif and purpose of George Eliot's work.
1897 ‘E. Lyall’ E. C. Gaskell in Women Novelists 125 The difficult subject which forms the motif of ‘Ruth’.
1902 W. W. Lawrence in Jrnl. Germanic Philol. 4 476 Repetition of motifs and consequent disturbance of logical arrangement is characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
1971 Eng. Stud. 52 501 In addition to the motif of longing, the themes of former happiness and of present estrangement from friends also unify the poem.
1980 M. Esslin Theatre of Absurd (ed. 3) v. 235 The room, which is the centre and chief poetic image of the play, is one of the recurring motifs of Pinter's work.
b. spec. (chiefly Cultural Anthropology) with reference to folklore and folk tales.
ΚΠ
1884 A. Lang in R.M. Dorson Peasant Customs (1968) I. 312 Turning from the Samoyeds and the Epirotes to Africa, we find the motif (escape of brother and sister) in a Kaffir tale.
1941 G. G. Scholem Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism ii. 67 Some of the oldest mythical motifs are to be found..in an extremely interesting..text.
1962 W. H. Auden Dyer's Hand (1963) 212 There is only one fairy-tale motif, to my knowledge, that contains an element of inner conflict.
1982 Callaloo No. 16. 158 [She] arranges them according to what she considers each tale's dominant motif.
4. gen. A distinctive, significant, or salient theme or idea; a recurrent or prevalent characteristic.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of ideation > topic, subject-matter > [noun] > leading theme
burden1649
keynote1763
motif1952
1952 P. Tillich Courage to Be v. 123 Another motif of recent Existentialism anticipated by nomination is the escape into authority.
1975 Aviation Week 10 Nov. 34/2 A world-turned-upside-down motif characterizes a growing list of changing facts of life in commercial air transport.
1991 A. Borrowdale Distorted Images iv. 38 James Nelson suggests that fear of failure is a strong motif in men's lives, and is connected with performance anxiety over sexual intercourse.
2000 C. Tudge Variety of Life ii. ix. 269 Shrimpishness is a primitive and common crustacean motif, recurring in many orders.
5. Molecular Biology. In a nucleic acid or protein molecule: a distinctive ordered region of the three-dimensional structure, or a specific, often conserved sequence of residues; esp. one that is associated with a particular function, such as formation of the DNA binding site of a transcription factor.
ΚΠ
1973 Currents in Mod. Biol. 5 97/1 Crystals of tRNA are presently being analysed by X-ray diffraction. If such a structural motif exists, its presence will become clear.
1979 Science 27 Apr. 376/1 This sturctural motif is not related to the clefted nature of kinases.
1981 Nature 26 Feb. 772/1 Each domain comprises a sandwich of two four-stranded sheets, each sheet being made from three strands of one ‘Greek key’ motif and one strand from another.
1988 Nature 6 Oct. 519/2 In this 3′ region, we note the presence of five ATTTA motifs that could influence the stability of messenger RNA.
1993 Sci. Amer. Feb. 32/2 Of course, zinc fingers are not the only structures transcription factors exploit for interacting with DNA. Other important examples bear such names as helix-turn-helix motifs..homeodomains and leucine zippers.
2001 Structure 9 73 Each structural unit for binding cAMP contains the highly conserved phosphate binding cassette that can be considered the ‘signature’ motif of cAMP binding domains.
II. Senses influenced by motive n. I.
6. A motivating, dominant, or regulating idea, esp. a recurrent or pervasive one. Frequently in profit motif (cf. profit motive n. at profit n. Compounds 1b).In later use frequently overlapping with sense 4 (see, e.g., quots. 1948, a1961).
ΚΠ
1874 J. O. Dykes Relations Kingdom to World 163 The very motif to such false teaching is a desire to broaden somewhat the excessive straitness of the gospel path to life.
1887 G. T. Ladd Elem. Physiol. Psychol. 463 The motifs or data which the mind would have for constructing such a surface must be found in the series of sensations of light and color.
1932 Internat. Jrnl. Ethics 42 118 The growth of the private profit motif in any professional man marks in him the recession of the professional spirit.
1948 Sociometry 11 220 Other highly chosen sentiments include ‘serving the community’, ‘promoting pleasure for others’, ‘self-sacrifice’, and ‘duty’, all of which in operation together form a ‘service to others’ motif.
a1961 in Webster's 3rd New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. (1961) (at cited word) The motif of the new measure is reformation. Spectator.
1993 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 15 Apr. c1/2 The profit motif is television. Television controls the purse strings.
Compounds
C1. General attributive (chiefly in sense 3).
motif-classification n.
ΚΠ
1966 K. Luomala in M. Jacobs Anthropol. looks at Myth 164 Kirtley's Motif-Index..follows Stith Thompson's system for motif-classification.
motif framework n.
ΚΠ
1971 R. L. Welsch tr. K. Krohn Folklore Methodol. iii. 31 The fact that it occurs more or less incidentally in other complexes is due to the influence of the motif framework.
motif research n.
ΚΠ
1938 P. S. Watson tr. A. T. S. Nygren Agape & Eros Pt. 2 I. 23 The answer can only be supplied by motif-research, that is, by an enquiry which detects the motif behind the formed expression.
1972 W. H. Capps (title) Motif-research as a comparative technique in theological systems analyses.
1988 Speculum 63 474 An exercise in motif research.
motif-work n.
ΚΠ
1948 L. Spitzer Linguistics & Lit. Hist. v. 193 This..movement is incarnated in..the rhythm—as in the verbal motif-work.
C2.
motif index n. chiefly Cultural Anthropology an index of standard motifs, esp. those found in folk tales.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > literary and textual criticism > textual criticism > version of text > [noun] > motif-index
motif index1932
1932 S. Thompson in Indiana Univ. Stud. No. 96 (heading) Motif-index of folk literature.
1958 T. P. Coffin Analyt. Index to Jrnl. Amer. Folklore 239 It was deemed advisable not to attempt a complete Thompson-style motif-index of the Journal.
1973 A. Dundes Mother Wit 114 These tools include various tale type indices and motif indices... By using tale type and motif indices, Dorson is able to demonstrate the European provenience of the greater portion of the tales.
1992 Harvard Jrnl. Asiatic Stud. 52 128 These statistics are based on the motif index of Dunhuang murals.
Derivatives
moˈtif-less adj.
ΚΠ
1970 Daily Tel. 27 June 7 This work, while not..unmotivated, is entirely motif-less—introductory clinking of pebbles, toneless blowing into instruments built for lusher uses.
moˈtif-like adj.
ΚΠ
1964 Eng. Stud. 44 446 Two terms which characterize Christina's..reputation through their motif-like occurrence, caprice and banality, are a source of insight and confusion.
1991 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 88 11349/2 GTP-binding motif-like sequences.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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