motivo
Spanish, noun
motivo is spelled M-O-T-I-V-O (6 letters) and appears 78 times per million words in written Spanish, the 1,138th most frequent Spanish word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Motivo is a Spanish masculine noun meaning “reason, ground, motive” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a first-person singular present indicative of motivar. With an accent, motivó is a different word: “third-person singular preterite indicative of motivar”. The Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario) defines it as “Razón que mueve o motiva una consecuencia”.
What does motivo mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinereason, ground, motive
no sé por qué motivo
verb
- 1
first-person singular present indicative of motivar
verb
- 1
third-person singular preterite indicative of motivar
Source: English Wiktionary, Spanish section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Spanish dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Razón que mueve o motiva una consecuencia. 2. Rasgo que se repite en una obra o conjunto de ellas. 3. Breve frase melódica o rítmica, normalmente demasiado corta para poder llamarse tema, usada a veces como un tópico puramente abstracto. 4. Perteneciente o relativo a una serie, a una emisión o a una colección de sellos, en los que se utiliza únicamente un tema. Por ejemplo: el coleccionismo de sellos sobre Lenin se denomina leniniana.
The definition in the Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario), in Spanish.
Source: Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of motivo
- motivos plural
Source: English Wiktionary and Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to motivo
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is motivo in Spanish?
motivo appears 78 times per million words in written Spanish.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).