motion

Less common meanings

6. 6
   music (pitch)nouncountable or uncountable

   The change of pitch from one note to the next, within a part or between parts.

   The composer favored stepwise motion in the soprano line.

   Contrary motion between the bass and melody gave the passage its tension.

   Note

   Music theory sorts its kinds of motion with adjectives. A single line moves in conjunct motion, by single scale steps, or in disjunct motion, by skips. Two parts compared move in similar or direct motion, contrary motion, or oblique motion, where one part holds still while the other moves. George Grove's A Dictionary of Music and Musicians makes the idea central: independent motions of parts sounding together constitute counterpoint. Source

   Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 6 facts

   • Music theory classifies motion using adjectives. en.wikisource.org
   • Conjunct motion proceeds by single scale steps; disjunct motion proceeds by skips. en.wiktionary.org
   • Similar motion is also called direct motion. open-musictheory.github.io
   • Similar, contrary and oblique describe the relative motions of parts; in oblique motion one part remains stationary. en.wikisource.org
   • George Grove edited A Dictionary of Music and Musicians. en.wikisource.org
   • The dictionary states that independent motions of simultaneously sounding parts constitute counterpoint. en.wikisource.org
7. 7
   bowel movementnouneuphemisticeuphemisticcountable

   An emptying of the bowels; the waste produced by it.

   The doctor noted that the patient had a normal motion each morning.

   Frequent loose motions left her dehydrated.

   UsageMostly in medical talk, as in pass a motion or loose motions; elsewhere, make the meaning clear.

   Similarmovement, stool

   Note

   A polite, clinical-sounding way around a blunt subject, at home in medical writing. William Braithwaite's The Retrospect of Medicine (1857) reports a patient who took one pill nightly and "had one comfortable motion every morning without the aid of any other aperient." In a doctor's notes it reads as proper and discreet.

8. 8
   inner urgenouncountable

   An inner stirring of the mind, desires, or passions; an impulse prompting one to act.

   The poem traces every motion of grief and longing in the speaker's heart.

   She distrusted the sudden motions of anger that rose in her.

   Similarstirring, impulse, emotion

   Note

   A word of devotional and moral prose, where the mind is pictured as moving within itself. Robert South's Twelve Sermons urges a good man to "obey every good motion rising in his heart," trusting that each comes from God. Such motions rise, stir, and are obeyed or resisted. The word usually comes with a qualifier or in the plural: a good motion, motions of anger, the motions of the heart. Source

   Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Robert South wrote the collection referred to as Twelve Sermons. en.wiktionary.org
   • South urges obedience to good motions arising in the heart, using the quoted wording, and says they come from God. ccel.org
9. 9
   proposeverbtransitive

   To propose something, especially formally in a meeting.

   When the discussion stalled, the treasurer motioned to table the proposal until the next meeting.

   If nobody else will, I'll motion to end the debate and call the vote.

   UsageOften motion to adjourn or motion that we vote; formal rules of order use move instead: I move that.

   Note

   Shakespeare used the verb with a direct object naming what is urged. In The First Part of Henry the Sixth (written about 1591), Gloucester is condemned as "one that still motions war and never peace," a man forever pressing for war.

10. 10
    nounobsoletecountable

    A show given for people's amusement, especially a puppet performance.

    when God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had bin else a meer artificiall Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions.

    1644, John Milton, Areopagitica

    Note

    A word of the early modern fair, now obsolete, for a show worked by unseen hands. John Milton's Areopagitica (1644) builds an argument on it. A man without freedom to choose, he says, would be "a meer artificiall Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions," the Adam of the puppet play. The same word could also name the jointed figure itself, as the "puppet" meaning shows. Source

    Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • Motion was used for puppet entertainments in the early modern fair tradition, with performers concealed behind the scenes. gutenberg.org
    • John Milton wrote Areopagitica, first published in 1644. onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu
    • Milton uses the quoted artificial Adam analogy in his argument about freedom to choose. en.wikisource.org
    • The Adam in Milton's motions is a puppet-show Adam. lostplays.folger.edu
    • Motion could also denote a puppet itself. en.wiktionary.org
11. 11
    puppetnounobsoletecountable

    A puppet, especially one used in a traveling show.

    What motion's this? the model of Nineveh?

    c. 1613, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley

    Note

    Here the word names the figure rather than the performance, though the two easily blur. In Wit at Several Weapons, a comedy usually credited to Thomas Middleton and William Rowley and first printed in 1647, a character asks "What motion's this? the model of Nineveh?" Like the "puppet show" meaning, it is obsolete and is met today mainly in older drama, where it can easily be misread as plain movement.

12. 12
    noun

    A set of moving parts in a machine, such as the rods and gears that drive a steam locomotive.
13. 13
    noun

    In Aristotelian philosophy, any kind of change: including coming-to-be and decay, alteration, growth or shrinkage, and movement from place to place.