DRIVEN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does driven mean? 

• DRIVEN (adjective)
  The adjective DRIVEN has 3 senses:

1. compelled forcibly by an outside agency

2. urged or forced to action through moral pressure

3. strongly motivated to succeed

  Familiarity information: DRIVEN used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DRIVEN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Compelled forcibly by an outside agency

Synonyms:

driven; goaded

Context example:

mobs goaded by blind hatred

Similar:

involuntary; nonvoluntary; unvoluntary (not subject to the control of the will)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Urged or forced to action through moral pressure

Synonyms:

driven; impelled

Context example:

felt impelled to take a stand against the issue

Similar:

motivated (provided with a motive or given incentive for action)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Strongly motivated to succeed

Synonyms:

compulsive; determined; driven

Similar:

ambitious (having a strong desire for success or achievement)

 Context examples 

She did not even exist, for his driven soul had no time to remember her.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Oh! no—it is not for me to be driven away by Mr. Darcy.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

As far as I can see, the man has been driven out of his senses by fright.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A cab had driven up whilst the American had been talking.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The advance could also hasten new technologies for solar-energy conversion, quantum information, and near-infrared driven photocatalysis.

(Making higher energy light to fight cancer, National Science Foundation)

At this stage of life, the baby brain has the ability to change significantly, and these changes are driven by the baby’s experiences.

(Mothers’ and babies’ brains ‘more in tune’ when mother is happy, University of Cambridge)

The researchers found that a temperature difference between inside and outside has a remarkably small effect on how well a room is ventilated when ventilation is primarily driven by wind.

(Wind more effective than cold air at cooling rooms naturally, University of Cambridge)

Walrus-hunting and the ivory trade were likely the cause of the extinction, one of the earliest examples of commercially driven overexploitation of marine resources.

(Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement, National Science Foundation)

Mills and team point out that the areas with co-existing winter brown and winter white animals would be places with special potential for evolutionary rescue, where genetically driven adaptive traits reverse population decline.

(Twenty-one species adapted to disappear in the snow. Then, the snow disappeared, National Science Foundation)

I found the tide had driven it still nearer.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)