Generally, a motif is a recurring element or theme in a work of art or media. Motif may refer to:

General concepts

Motif (chess composition) In chess composition, a motif is basic element of a move in the consideration why the piece moves and how it supports the fulfillment of a stipulation. Any move may and often does contain multiple motifs. Some composition schools put specific ...

, an element of a move in the consideration of its purpose *

Motif (folkloristics) The ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'' is a six volume catalogue of Motif (narrative), motifs, granular elements of folklore, composed by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1932–1936, revised and expanded 1955–1958). Often referred to as Thom ...

, a recurring element that creates recognizable patterns in folklore and folk-art traditions *

Motif (music) In music, a motif () or motive is a short musical idea, a Salience (neuroscience), salient recurring Figure (music), figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a musical composi ...

, a salient recurring fragment or succession of notes *

Motif (narrative) A motif ( ) is any distinctive feature or idea that recurs across a story; often, it helps develop other narrative elements such as theme or mood. A narrative motif can be created through the use of imagery, structural components, language, ...

, any recurring element in a story that has symbolic significance or the reason behind actions *

Motif (textile arts) In the textile arts, a motif (also called a block or square) is a smaller element in a much larger work. In knitting and crochet, motifs are made one at a time and joined together to create larger works such as afghan blankets or shawls. An ...

, a recurring element or fragment that, when joined, creates a larger work *

Motif (visual arts) In art and iconography, a motif () is an element of an image. Motifs can occur both in figurative and narrative art, and in ornament and geometrical art. A motif may be repeated in a pattern or design, often many times, or may just occur once ...

, a repeated theme or pattern

Biochemistry

Sequence motif In biology, a sequence motif is a nucleotide or amino-acid sequence pattern that is widespread and usually assumed to be related to biological function of the macromolecule. For example, an ''N''-glycosylation site motif can be defined as ''A ...

, a sequence pattern of nucleotides in a DNA sequence or amino acids in a protein *

Short linear motif In molecular biology short linear motifs (SLiMs), linear motifs or minimotifs are short stretches of protein primary structure, protein sequence that mediate protein–protein interaction. The first definition was given by Tim Hunt: "The sequences ...

, a stretch of protein sequence that mediates protein–protein interaction *

Structural motif In a chain-like biological molecule, such as a protein or nucleic acid, a structural motif is a common three-dimensional structure that appears in a variety of different, evolutionarily unrelated molecules. A structural motif does not have t ...

, a pattern in a protein structure formed by the spatial arrangement of amino acids

Other uses

* ''Motif'' (2019 film), 2019 Malaysian Malay-language crime drama film * ''Motif'' (album), a 2008 album by guitarist Steve Howe *

Motif (band) Motif (established 1999 in Trondheim, Norway) is an experimental jazz band, still polishing the personal sound they have been meticulously shaping since the beginning, with a Frank Zappa influence all around it (also present in the humouristic si ...

, a Swedish experimental jazz band *

Motif (software) In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface (GUI) specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The Motif look ...

, a GUI specification and widget toolkit for Unix *

Network motif Network motifs are recurrent and statistically significant subgraphs or patterns of a larger graph. All networks, including biological networks, social networks, technological networks (e.g., computer networks and electrical circuits) and mo ...

, patterns (sub-graphs) that recur more often than expected *

Yamaha Motif The Yamaha Motif (stylized in all-uppercase MOTIF) is a series of music workstation synthesizers, first released by Yamaha Corporation in August 2001. The Motif replaced the EX series in Yamaha's line-up and was also based on the early Yamaha S s ...

, a series of music workstations

General concepts

Biochemistry

Other uses

See also