animate

American  

[an-uh-meyt, an-uh-mit] / ˈæn əˌmeɪt, ˈæn ə mɪt /

verb (used with object)

• animates,
  present (3rd person singular)
• animated,
  past participle,  past
• animating
  present participle

1. to give life to; make alive.

   God animated the dust.

   Synonyms:

   vitalize, quicken, vivify

   Antonyms:

   kill

2. to make lively, vivacious, or vigorous; give zest or spirit to.

   Her presence animated the party.

   Synonyms:

   fortify, energize

3. to fill with courage or boldness; encourage.

   to animate weary troops.

   Synonyms:

   exhilarate, arouse, hearten, inspirit, inspire

4. to move or stir to action; motivate.

   He was animated by religious zeal.

   Synonyms:

   prompt, kindle, urge, fire, incite, excite

5. to give motion to.

   leaves animated by a breeze.

6. to render or produce (a story, character, movie, etc.) by using animation: to animate the characters in a video game;

   to animate a children's story;

   to animate the characters in a video game;

   an animated film.

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adjective

1. alive; possessing life.

   animate creatures.

   Antonyms:

   dead

2. lively.

   an animate expression of joy.

3. of or relating to animal life.

4. able to move voluntarily.

5. Linguistics. belonging to a syntactic category or having a semantic feature that is characteristic of words denoting beings regarded as having perception and volition (opposed to inanimate).

animate British  

verb

1. to give life to or cause to come alive

2. to make lively; enliven

3. to encourage or inspire

4. to impart motion to; move to action or work

5. to record on film or video tape so as to give movement to

   an animated cartoon

---

adjective

1. being alive or having life

2. gay, spirited, or lively

Usage

What does animate mean? To animate is to make lively or give spirit to. Someone can animate a dull situation by bringing some energy to it, such as with humor, music, or anything that is associated with movement or emotion. To animate also means to give motion to, the way a cartoonist or animator does with drawings. Animated media include cartoons, 3D films, video games, and visual effects. To animate also means to motivate or to encourage to take action, as in Coach really animated the team with her pre-game speech. Animate can be used as an adjective to mean lively or full of energy, as in Carly had an animate spirit that people liked to be around. Animate can also mean able to move voluntarily. It can also broadly describe any living being as separate from inanimate objects, which cannot move on their own and don’t have their own will. When animate is used as an adjective, it is pronounced as [ an-uh-mit ], rather than [ an-uh-meyt ], as the verb form is. Example: I animate characters for children’s shows using a computer program.

Synonym Usage

Animate, invigorate, stimulate mean to enliven. To animate is to create a liveliness: Health and energy animated his movements. To invigorate means to give physical vigor, to refresh, to exhilarate: Mountain air invigorates. To stimulate is to arouse a latent liveliness on a particular occasion: Caffeine will stimulate you and keep you alert.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• animateness
  noun
• interanimate
  verb (used with object)
• nonanimate
  adjective
• nonanimating
  adjective
• semianimate
  adjective
• unanimating
  adjective
• animately
  adverb
• animatingly
  adverb
• nonanimatingly
  adverb
• unanimatingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• animating
  present
• animated
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• animate
  simple
• animates
  simple
• have animated
  perfect
• has animated
  perfect
• am animating
  progressive
• are animating
  progressive
• is animating
  progressive
• have been animating
  perfect progressive
• has been animating
  perfect progressive

Past

• animated
  simple
• had animated
  perfect
• was animating
  progressive
• were animating
  progressive
• had been animating
  perfect progressive

Future

• will animate
  simple
• will have animated
  perfect
• will be animating
  progressive
• will have been animating
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of animate

1375–1425; late Middle English animat < Latin animātus filled with breath or air, quickened, animated (past participle of animāre ). See anima, -ate ¹

Explanation

At its most basic, animate means simply alive, while inanimate means not living, not moving around. But animate also means spirited, or brought to life. Animated cartoons are what we think of as pictures come to life: animation. Animate derives from the Latin anima "life, soul, spirit." When you seem particularly filled with life, or high-spirited, if you laugh loudly, or use broad gestures, you're animated.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

animate animates animated animating

They just needed to submit photographs of themselves and their loved ones, and AI would then animate the material following specific prompts.

From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026

Racial equity and climate change used to animate the movement.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026

Woe unto those who fail to entertain, animate or amuse.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 10, 2026

The show, a touring tutorial he created and performs solo, allows Page the opportunity to animate with barnstorming crackle a rogue’s gallery of Shakespearean scoundrels.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2026

Some tiny bag of chemicals twitched and became animate.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

“Their hijacking of the public square is made possible by the original sin that animates their AI products — a brazen theft of intellectual property that has occurred at an unprecedented scale,” he said.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 2, 2026

Yet if “Born to Run” unexpectedly animates the pub jukebox, long dormant toes might start tapping, if only for a few wistful moments.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026

The same logic animates the administration’s posture toward the Western Hemisphere.

From Barron's ● Mar. 20, 2026

Much has been written about right-wing women and what animates them.

From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2025

This entire episode took me from fear to a rage that burned in me then, animates me now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days.

From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

It also helped show that an animated kids series can tackle weighty themes such as war, genocide, imperialism, sexism, propaganda and political corruption in a serialized story and be a hit.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026

I can already imagine it: point your phone at a package of ground beef and wait while a tiny animated horseshoe spins on the screen.

From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026

His move to Southern California coincided with the beginning of his Emmy-winning voice acting career, which started with a role for Hanna Barbera’s animated adaptation of “The Creation.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026

One animated series that had made its way through development, “Pearl,” was ultimately canceled.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

It was the most animated he’d been all day.

From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen

The show obviously exists with that world, as part of it, but you didn’t spend a whole lot of time animating texts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026

It is about much more profound questions of Britain's sovereignty, economy and place in the world which have been animating our politics for more than a decade now.

From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2026

Democracy demands allegiance to ideals of human dignity and political equality, the protection of which is its animating purpose.

From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2026

Feeding this public appetite for sadism has been an animating feature of Noem’s DHS.

From Salon ● Feb. 13, 2026

With no less than the animating principle of the universe: “azoth,” the secret essence alchemists had sought for centuries.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

Related Words

• energize
• enliven
• exalt
• excite
• hearten
• inspire