animate

[an-uh-meyt, an-uh-mit]

verb (used with object)

animated, animating 

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.

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 (inanimate ).

animate

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

Other Word Forms

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of animate¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of animate¹

C16: from Latin animāre to fill with breath, make alive, from anima breath, spirit

Synonym Study

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.

Example Sentences

Dropout is also looking to expand into scripted programming, including an animated series in development.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

It united the Republican Party around his candidacy in 2024 and animated its voters to support him against what they saw as the partisan weaponization of justice.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Weeks later, those discussions remain both active and animated.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The film's anthem Golden, sung by Huntr/x, has spent eight weeks at number one, tying Sugar Sugar by The Archies for the most time at the top of the charts by an animated act.

Read more on BBC

Nobody, including him, guessed he’d given voice to the animating spirit of American reform that would transcend the parties over the next 20 years.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

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

When To Use

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.