animate

American  

[an-uh-mayt, 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

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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

• animacy
  noun
• 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

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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

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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

That’s because it always has been easier to do so when we think of machines as animate objects.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2026

Another used A.I. to animate a photo of Walters, the digital replica lamenting his sentence of “death by incarceration.”

From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026

However perverse and depraved the ideas that animate the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah, they inspire the kind of conviction that motivates people to fight grimly on against the odds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026

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

The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving river itself,—the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathise with us, animate us, and encourage us on,—freshened me with new hope.

From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens

By placing sculpture and design in direct dialogue, the show reveals how thoroughly Noguchi’s sculptural intelligence animates every object he created.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

“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

AI companies' "hijacking of the public square is made possible by the original sin that animates their A.I. products -- a brazen theft of intellectual property that has occurred at an unprecedented scale," said A.G.

From Barron's ● Jun. 1, 2026

That core truth animates the centuries-old English tradition of equity, which developed as a system to do justice when courts of law weren’t up to the task.

From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2025

What animates Volpe is creating moments for his kids to figure it out for themselves.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove

Cami Kwan, director of Burbank, Calif.-based stop-motion studio Apartment D Films, which animated the e.l.f. spot, estimates that inbound inquiries have doubled over the past two years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026

While most of his career was spent onstage, you’ll find his name in the credits of many films and shows and hear his baritone in a slew of video games and animated work.

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026

And he was the voice of a small character in the animated film of Richard Adams' novel The Plague Dogs.

From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026

Then came the Inside Out juggernaut, an exploration of the human emotional landscape whose sequel became the highest-grossing animated film of all time upon its release in 2024.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026

A second fork of animated lightning sliced across the screen, there was a swirl of clouds, and then in burning red the letters SE, the logo of Sayle Enterprises.

From "Stormbreaker" by Anthony Horowitz

Other issues also are animating the race, including debate over the response to the Palisades fire and a controversial housing project in Venice.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026

That animating spirit courses through “Celtic Art Across the Ages,” a nearly 300-object survey of jewelry, armor, chariot fittings, manuscripts, vessels, coins, carvings and textiles at the Harvard Art Museums, its sole venue.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 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

This provocation sets the narrative in motion, framed by Garbus’ choice to illustrate the children’s ambitions by animating them as pieces on a game board modeled after Monopoly.

From Salon ● Mar. 14, 2026

The artificial life force animating them seemed to fail if pressed too far...at least in some of them.

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

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Related Words

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• enliven
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