🦠 Able to move 🤸 Movement thinker

motile

9.9

A person who thinks and learns mainly through body movement and feelings

noun
/ˈmoʊtaɪl/

Specialized

: móvil

During the therapy session, the motile described how the act of moving helped them feel more in tune with their emotions.

Examples

In the classroom, the teacher noted that each motile was deeply engaged, expressing ideas through physical demonstrations.
A dramatic difference between the traditional system and the newer five-class system is that algae in one of the classes share motile cell features with those of land plants (e.g., sperm in bryophytes); this class is thus interpreted as having a closer evolutionary history to land plants (Stewart and Mattox 1978).

Academic text (2008)
These authors did, however, note that all returned samples retained motile and viable sperm.

Academic text (2015)
The motile Cnimptonian was his or her usual hyperfrenetic self.

Fiction book (2002)
By means of their motile properties, outer hair cells are thought to be the cellular basis of the cochlear amplifier.

Academic text (1998)
There is a strong correlation between population density and body size across motile taxa, known as the inverse-scaling rule, where body size is used as an independent variable.

Academic text (2013)
The slow motile response can be induced by chemical stimulation, perhaps by the activation of the efferent nervous system that synapses directly on outer hair cells.

Academic text (1998)
As a motile, he found that imagining his movements enhanced his understanding of complex concepts in the learning process.

Antonyms

static

45 3.8

Not moving or changing over time

Surface Forms

motile singular

motiles plural

Morphology

motile = motile (opaque) = mot + ile

The noun sense is a conversion from the adjective 'motile', but the form contains a learned bound root and the specialized psychological meaning is not directly predictable for most learners.

Etymology

Motile as a noun comes from the same Latin root mot- meaning 'to move', and it links to familiar words like move and motion. In psychology, a 'motile' is someone who thinks in terms of movement or bodily action, so the word reminds you that their thinking 'moves' through sensations and actions.