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Me and a friend were having an argument recently over "Motivate your answer". He said this:

see it like this, motivate = force that drives you, okay? motivate your choices = arguments you considered that have driven you towards that choice

So it appears to be a more literal translation, like:

Give reason to your answer.

Is this the case, or is just simply wrong?

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  • "Motivate" is used with a special meaning in mathematics and related fields. Does this apply here?
    – GEdgar
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 19:37
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    Sounds wrong to me (a native English speaker), despite the definition you gave. (As does "Me and a friend...")
    – JLG
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 20:17
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    Can you use it in a complete sentence where you think one thing and your friend he other? And explain what your friend thinks and what you think? Otherwise there's little to go on here other than simply giving what we think 'motivate your answer.' could mean.
    – Mitch
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 21:57

2 Answers 2

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I would probably go for "justify" your answer with the meaning of "give reasons for your answer". However, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary states that "motivate" has precisely this meaning in formal South African English, so perhaps it is the same elsewhere too.

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  • You may also "substantiate" your decision.
    – Graffito
    Commented Dec 4, 2016 at 0:15
  • It would be good to include 'OALD licenses a sense << '​motivate something' (South African English, formal): to give reasons for something that you have stated Please motivate your answer to question 5'
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 14, 2020 at 12:10
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"Motivate" in the sense of "providing reasons" does not appear in canonical dictionaries, e.g. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/motivate However, it is widely used in scientific contexts, as in https://books.google.de/books?id=MCJ69lInYFEC&pg=PT224&lpg=PT224&dq=%22motivate+this+argument%22+linguistics&source=bl&ots=_juRyy9RO6&sig=ACfU3U0AvzIGX03g9etpLcg-MD6QyMbMpA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivpPjqgeboAhXJzKQKHVMrANMQ6AEwAHoECAoQLA#v=onepage&q=%22motivate%20this%20argument%22%20linguistics&f=false

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  • Couldn't that be 'get it going'?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 18:48
  • @Edwin Ashworth What do you mean?
    – user373710
    Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 19:00
  • "I am going to motivate this argument ...."
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 19:14
  • Well, what about this one (Lyons)? books.google.de/… "Motivate" is widely used in the sense of "providing arguments" in scientific discourse.
    – user373710
    Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 19:27
  • Well, what about it? It looks good to me. Wouldn't it have been better to replace the less convincing evidence in your answer? // Note that, as Paola has said, OALD licenses a sense << '​motivate something' (South African English, formal): to give reasons for something that you have stated Please motivate your answer to question 5 >>. But this is 'justifying arguments already / about to be presented', not 'suggesting arguments' / 'putting forward ideas'.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 14, 2020 at 12:07

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