motivated

1. 1
   adjective

   Full of drive and enthusiasm, particularly for pursuing a goal.

   New employees often arrive highly motivated and full of ideas.

   A motivated student will seek out extra reading without being told.

   Similardriven, eager, enthusiastic, keen, ambitious

   Oppositeapathetic, unenthusiastic, indifferent

   Note

   A gradable word that takes more and most, and in job advertisements it usually travels with highly, as in a highly motivated individual. The goal can follow with to plus a verb (more motivated to excel) or with toward plus a noun (more motivated toward school). Wallen and Fraenkel's Educational Research (2001) uses it comparatively, setting one group of students against another by how much drive each shows.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of motivate.

   The new policy motivated employees to improve their performance.

   She has motivated countless students over her long career.

   Note

   A regular -ed form, so one spelling serves both the simple past (the policy motivated them) and the participle after have or be (she has motivated students; they were motivated by fear). Because motivate takes an object, the passive is common, and that is where the verb shades into the "enthusiastic" adjective: was motivated by money names a cause, while was very motivated describes a state of mind.

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