Ostinato vs Motive - What's the difference?

ostinato | motive |

As a noun ostinato

is (music) a piece of melody, a chord progression, or a bass figure that is repeated over and over as a musical accompaniment.

As a verb motive is





  • (music) A piece of melody, a chord progression, or a bass figure that is repeated over and over as a musical accompaniment.
  • * {{quote-news, 2009, January 26, Anthony Tommasini, Pricking Up the Ears to Listen for Echoes of California, New York Times citation
  • , passage=The piece moves in alluring spans of swirling figures, jagged lines and pointillistic outbursts, often prodded forward by ostinatos in the perky piano. }}






    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) An idea or communication that makes one want to act, especially from spiritual sources; a divine prompting.
  • *, III.2.1.ii:
  • *:there's something in a woman beyond all human delight; a magnetic virtue, a charming quality, an occult and powerful motive .
  • An incentive to act in a particular way; a reason or emotion that makes one want to do something; anything that prompts a choice of action.
  • * 1947 , (Malcolm Lowry), Under the Volcano :
  • Many of them at first seemed kind to him, but it turned out their motives were not entirely altruistic.
  • (obsolete, rare) A limb or other bodily organ that can move.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • (legal) Something which causes someone to want to commit a crime; a reason for criminal behaviour.
  • What would his motive be for burning down the cottage?
    No-one could understand why she had hidden the shovel; her motives were obscure at best.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1931, author=
  • , chapter=10/6, title= Death Walks in Eastrepps , passage=“Why should Eldridge commit murder?
  • (architecture, fine arts) A motif.
  • (music) A motif; a theme or subject, especially one that is central to the work or often repeated.
  • If you listen carefully, you can hear the flutes mimicking the cello motive .


    * (incentive ) motivation * (creative works ) motif


  • To prompt or incite by a motive or motives; to move.
  • Synonyms

    * motivate


  • * 1658 , Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus , Folio Society 2007, p. 195:
  • In the motive parts of animals may be discovered mutuall proportions; not only in those of Quadrupeds, but in the thigh-bone, legge, foot-bone, and claws of Birds.
  • Relating to motion and/or to its cause
  • Synonyms

    * moving * (relating to motion) motional


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