Motivational

How to spell motivational

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce motivational

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does motivational mean?

1. adjectiveDesigned or tending to encourage enthusiasm, effort, or a desire to act.

Motivational in a sentence

• The manager opened the conference with a short motivational talk.

• She pinned a motivational poster above her desk to keep her focused.

Where does motivational come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb movere, which simply meant 'to move'. From its past participle stem motus, Latin formed words about setting things in motion, and medieval Latin coined motivus to describe something that causes movement or prompts action. English borrowed 'motive' through Old French during the 1400s, originally as a noun for the inner cause that pushes a person to act. The longer chain 'motive' to 'motivate' to 'motivation' grew over later centuries, and 'motivational' was finally assembled as an adjective in the twentieth century, especially in the language of psychology, business, and self-improvement. The spelling trap lives in those stacked suffixes: the unstressed middle vowels in mo-ti-VA-tion-al are easy to slur, and the word keeps a single 't' rather than doubling it.

How the word is built

• mot- (from movere: to move)
• -ive (adjective suffix)
• -ation (noun-forming)
• -al (adjective suffix)