as in incentive
something that arouses action or activity
the reward money should be sufficient impetus for someone to come forward with information about the robbery
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Recent Examples of impetus
Benefits for local employers The principal impetus for the largely bipartisan push to offer bachelor's degrees at community colleges, however, is to train more workers for those fields in which there are labor shortages.
—
Jon Marcus, NPR, 7 May 2025
The former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator brought with him an impetus to own the line of scrimmage, and the result in free agency was two new guards (Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson) and a new center in Drew Dalman.
—Zak Keefer, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2025
Change this place when really my impetus for coming here was to be changed.
—Outside Online, 23 Apr. 2025
The state’s budget could be the impetus for a third special session of the General Assembly in as many years — especially if federal cuts to Medicaid materialize.
—Nick Coltrain, Denver Post, 9 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for impetus
Jon Marcus, NPR, 7 May 2025
The former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator brought with him an impetus to own the line of scrimmage, and the result in free agency was two new guards (Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson) and a new center in Drew Dalman.
—Zak Keefer, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2025
Change this place when really my impetus for coming here was to be changed.
—Outside Online, 23 Apr. 2025
The state’s budget could be the impetus for a third special session of the General Assembly in as many years — especially if federal cuts to Medicaid materialize.
—Nick Coltrain, Denver Post, 9 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for impetus
Recent Examples of Synonyms for impetus
Noun
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The Biden administration sought to encourage manufacturers to build in the United States, but those efforts are still in their early stages, and many of the government incentives are now on the chopping block.—
Dan Gearino,
Wired News,
31 May 2025
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While Enders’ report accuses Amazon of contributing to the piracy problem, as the owner of its own streaming service, Prime Video, Amazon has an incentive to fight piracy.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
30 May 2025
Noun
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What stuck with her most were the messages of encouragement and the resilience of the kittens themselves.—
Ashley Vega,
People.com,
26 May 2025
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In public support of his sister’s health journey, Robert Irwin also took to Instagram to share words of encouragement.—
Sara Vallone,
Miami Herald,
25 May 2025
Noun
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The days of dodging class or suffering from a lack of motivation appear to be a thing of the past at Alpha School, a private pre-K through eighth grade institution that utilizes personalized artificial intelligence to teach an entire day of core academic lessons in just two hours.—
Alex Backus,
MSNBC Newsweek,
29 May 2025
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The process is also shaped by a long-term signaling process where candidates express interest or withdraw based on personal motivations and interactions with the current leader.—
Matthew F. Erskine,
Forbes.com,
29 May 2025
Noun
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The recordings revealed that AWB and ASH, two neurons that are responsible for making sense of olfactory stimuli, were activated when the corpses and fluids were present, indicating that the worms were smelling the signature of death.—
Sam Walters,
Discover Magazine,
23 May 2025
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When we get stung by a wasp, the association between pain and wasps is encoded in the region of the brain called the amygdala, which connects simple stimuli with basic emotions.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
21 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Impetus.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/impetus. Accessed 4 Jun. 2025.
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