1822 J. M. Good Study Med. III. 30 Motific, or irritative power of a lower description than sensific.

1835–6 Todd's Cycl. Anat. & Physiol. I. 800/2 Convulsion..is an affection of the motific not of the sensific part of the nervous system.

1970 19th-cent. Fiction 25 287 The social gatherings of the doomed in Hawthorne's ‘Legends of the Province House’ form one of the motific elements which transform four..tales into an impressive total work.

1980 N.Y. Times 12 Oct. ii. 30/6 Massenet was the first native composer to write integrated cycles, complete with motific references, while his easy declamation and fluid formal procedures (much influenced by Schumann) were not wasted on Faure or Debussy.

1991 J. Keenan Putting on Ritz (1992) i. 7 My own apartment, though comfy by my standards, is not what you'd call ‘decorated’ unless you consider the widespread use of milk crates to be motific.

2001 Times (Nexis) 26 Jan. Excited by the potential of every solo orchestral entry, and bringing a sense of real physical struggle to the music's motific growth, Levin rediscovered the urgent inner necessity of this music's life-force.