Central theme

The answer

MOTIF

5 letters. See every clue for this answer on the MOTIF answer page.

Used 9 times across 7 distinct years; most recently in 2016; first recorded in 1970. It appears in 5 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other answers for this clue

The same clue has also been answered these ways in the xd corpus. Answers inside this collection link to their own answer page.

• GIST (3 uses in xd)
• CORE (1 uses in xd)

Other clues for MOTIF

Every other clue in this collection answered by MOTIF, most used first.

• Recurring theme - used 95 times, most recently in 2026
• Theme - used 54 times, most recently in 2023
• Decorator's theme - used 15 times, most recently in 2025
• Dominant theme - used 15 times, most recently in 2026
• Main theme - used 12 times, most recently in 2012
• Recurrent theme - used 10 times, most recently in 2024
• Artistic theme - used 9 times, most recently in 2019
• Musical theme - used 7 times, most recently in 2011
• Design theme - used 6 times, most recently in 2017
• Unifying idea - used 6 times, most recently in 2022
• Unifying theme - used 6 times, most recently in 2021

Related clues

Clues in this collection of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• Central Florida city - OCALA, used 100 times
• Central - INNER, used 50 times
• Central idea - THEME, used 30 times
• Central part - MIDST, used 27 times
• Central New York city - UTICA, used 23 times
• "__ Theme" ("Doctor Zhivago" tune) - LARAS, used 21 times

Search the clue collection

Search by clue words or by answer, or type a pattern with the letters you have and a blank for each square you do not know. The characters _ ? . and - all work as blanks.