vivify

American  

[viv-uh-fahy] / ˈvɪv əˌfaɪ /

verb (used with object)

vivified, vivifying

1. to give life to; animate; quicken.

2. to enliven; brighten; sharpen.

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vivify British  

/ ˈvɪvɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. to bring to life; animate

2. to make more vivid or striking

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Other Word Forms

• vivification
  noun
• vivifier
  noun
• unvivified
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of vivify

First recorded in 1535–45; late Middle English from Middle French vivifier from Late Latin vīvificāre ). See vivi-, -fy ( def. )

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Explanation

When you vivify something, you bring new excitement or life to it. If you decide to liven up your boring apartment by painting the walls every color of the rainbow, you can say that you're trying to vivify your home. You might vivify your family's meals by experimenting with exotic spices or vivify your school by hiring circus performers to ride unicycles up and down the halls. The Latin root word of vivify is vivus, or "alive," which is also the origin of the closely related word vivid.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vivify vivified vivifying

“Like a novelist,” Rafferty wrote, “he finds the human details that vivify the character.”

From Washington Post ● Mar. 9, 2020

Two moving and expansive books about enduring American symbols vivify abstract ideas through surprisingly specific images.

From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2018

He will vivify the church by creating a vacuum.

From Slate ● Jan. 12, 2017

Williams made a conscious decision to vivify the film with almost completely new thematic ideas.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2015

Carefully saved, the product of one well will serve to moisten and vivify a good many acres of grass or tillage.

From What I know of farming: a series of brief and plain expositions of practical agriculture as an art based upon science by Horace Greeley

Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation ceremony vivified for war-fatigued Britain the collective sentiments that make a community.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 8, 2022

“But no film in which Cate Blanchett head-butts a vivified jack-o’-lantern could be entirely without merit.”

From New York Times ● Oct. 4, 2019

However, the graceful Croatian was vivified into a grinding fightback in the second set, saving four break points and was one point away from levelling in the 10th game.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 28, 2018

In Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, the eminent presidential historian Robert Dallek has deftly vivified the two practitioners of realpolitik and their world.

From Forbes ● Jun. 13, 2014

To have you in the midst of us! we clustered round you, shone upon, vivified, strengthened by your presence, surrounding you with an atmosphere of love & cheerful life.

From The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman by Anne Burrows Gilchrist

And as intent on vivifying culture as Bourdain was, I think he’d watch this movie and feel that there’s an authenticity that is deeply missed.

From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026

The vivifying dichotomy is even announced in advance.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2025

But Gurnah avoids that misstep by gently vivifying the lives of a few African characters in all their rich humanity and even their comedy, without sentimentality or condescension.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2022

Now out from private hibernation behind a bedroom closet door in the desert and back from a public state of ruin, the vivifying struggle recommences for “Woman-Ochre.”

From Los Angeles Times ● May 31, 2022

He never failed to impress the hearer with his own sincerity, and to imbue his spirit with a devotional feeling that brought with it refreshing influence and vivifying hope.

From Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou by Maturin Murray Ballou

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