motivated

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adjective

mo·​ti·​vat·​ed ˈmō-tə-ˌvā-təd 

: provided with a motive : having an incentive or a strong desire to do well or succeed in some pursuit

a motivated employee

Courses are being offered on college campuses for those who are highly motivated but who without such help often drop out and are lost to society and themselves.

—Carol Kort

In a sporting context, for example, athletes who consistently seem to play hard and rarely concede defeat are often described as highly motivated or "competitive" by the media.

—Robert C. Eklund

motivated

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past tense and past participle of motivate

Examples of motivated in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

The punch-worthy parody of Altman’s characterization ramps up once he’s motivated to push back against — or trample over — the safety guardrails that Ilya prizes above all else, but so does the depth of his world-breaking cynicism. — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 6 Oct. 2026

Some of these companies are motivated to help people, but others are simply looking for big profits, said Marianna von Zahn, the former Afghanistan director of programs at Prosper Global. — Laura Paddison, CNN Money, 6 Oct. 2026

Andy Anderson, once a private detective for Griffin Investigations, demonstrated this remarkable feat of motivated reasoning in the 2004 documentary The Hot Shoe. — Kit Chellel, Fortune, 5 Oct. 2026

Meanwhile, in both versions of the story, Jeremy is motivated to kill Verity because of the death of his daughter. — Glamour, 2 Oct. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

Adjective

1903, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing motivated

• self-motivated

Rhymes for motivated

• abdicated
• abrogated
• acclimated
• activated
• actuated
• adumbrated
• advocated
• aggravated
• aggregated
• agitated
• allocated
• alternated