Word.ws English Dictionary

set in motion

set in motion verb: to trigger movement or progress; to get going.

Verb

set in motion (third-person singular simple present sets in motion, present participle setting in motion, simple past and past participle set in motion)

  1. (idiomatic) To trigger movement or progress; to get going.
    • Considerable excitement was caused on the L.M.S.R. Aberdeen line out of Perth recently when a shunting engine in Perth North goods yard, whose driver and fireman were absent, was accidentally set in motion by a shunter and set off unattended on to the main line.1941 October, “Notes and News: A Highland Runaway”, in Railway Magazine, page 469
    • She was seen as a gifted pop-country ingenue when, in a now infamous moment, Kanye West interrupted Swift onstage at the 2009 VMAs while she was accepting an award. The incident set in motion a chain of events that would shape the next decade of both artists’ lives.2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2023

set in motion meaning in Malayalam and Sanskrit

set in motion in Malayalam

begin, start, commence
പ്രവർത്തനം ആരംഭിപ്പിക്കുക, പ്രവർത്തിപ്പിക്കാൻ തുടങ്ങുക, ചലിപ്പിക്കുക, പ്രാരംഭമിടുക, തുടക്കംകുറിക്കുക, ആരംഭിക്കുക

set in motion in Sanskrit

trigger movement or progress
सुवति suvati

Synonyms of set in motion

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of set in motion

Forms of set in motion

third-person singular presentsets in motion
present participlesetting in motion
past participleset in motion
pastset in motion

Questions about set in motion

What does set in motion mean?
Set in motion means to trigger movement or progress; to get going.
What is set in motion in Malayalam?
Set in motion in Malayalam is പ്രവർത്തനം ആരംഭിപ്പിക്കുക, പ്രവർത്തിപ്പിക്കാൻ തുടങ്ങുക, ചലിപ്പിക്കുക. See Set in motion meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is set in motion?
Set in motion is a verb.
What is the past tense of set in motion?
The past tense of set in motion is set in motion.

Words near set in motion in the dictionary

  1. set forwards
  2. set free
  3. set function
  4. set functions
  5. set in
  6. set in motion
  7. set in one's ways
  8. set in stone
  9. set in train
  10. set light
  11. set list

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: set in motion (page history and authors); set in motion (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-set in motion.ogg.

Cite this entry: “set in motion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/set_in_motion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.