Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having no motive or aim; objectless.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Destitute of a motive; not incited by a motive.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Without a
motive .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective occurring without motivation or provocation
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Indiscriminate killings in East Rand townships continued over the weekend, with 17 more people losing their lives since Saturday in what yet another police report described as motiveless and faceless violence.
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A man was seriously ill in hospital after being stabbed in a "motiveless" group attack.
icWestlothian 2008
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The rickety underpinnings of his philosophy are constantly being exposed in "Proud Beggars"—there's nothing loftily motiveless about the murder, after all, since it is triggered by drug addiction, and Gohar's claim that one more death is nothing in light of the world's "immense charade" seems like the most banal sort of special pleading.
Tales of Jaunty Anarchy on the Nile Sam Sacks 2011
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Jennifer Garner is Laura Pickler, the Tea Party-style candidate and a ruthless dragon with an apparently motiveless lust for power and a distaste for what she perceives as the victim vote that's thwarting her: "I'm sorry I was born tall and white and pretty and I haven't sat in front of the TV eating pork rind and soiling myself."
Butter – review 2011
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Hideous, jarring Luther, filled with phlegmy death rattles, seeping brains, and motiveless daylight butcherings carried out by psychopaths "just for the lulz".
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This is, the troubled police investigator recognizes, "a motiveless crime," an act that speaks to a larger rejection of society.
Tales of Jaunty Anarchy on the Nile Sam Sacks 2011
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No, it was a pointless, motiveless assault by teenagers with brains in neutral.
Archive 2009-09-01 2009
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Hideous, jarring Luther, filled with phlegmy death rattles, seeping brains, and motiveless daylight butcherings carried out by psychopaths "just for the lulz".
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A motiveless crime is that step nearer to being a perfect crime.
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And what is this motiveless swiping about, given that all he ever does is chuck the object away leaving Dora to go and pick it up?
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